keeping produce fresh

I got to web-searching a while ago, looking for something that would keep the bananas fresher longer, and stumbled upon this article at the Louisville, KY Courier-Journal site:

http://www.courier-journal.com/features/food/iso/fe20020201iso.html

Also one at Outside Online:

http://www.outsidemag.com/magazine/0596/9605reco.html

The produce bags discussed in the article can be obtained here:

http://www.evert-fresh.com/

or here

http://www.greenbags.com/

Anybody have experience with these? Do they work as advertised?

[ June 16, 2002, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: John ]

Good question, John.

I will need to ask my wife about that.

Daryl,

If she doesn't know, I'll go ahead and be a guinea pig.....they don't cost but so much. I'm just really tired of bananas going spotty brown after 3 days! If I can't find a store that sells them locally, there are a lot of places on the web that sell them. If you do a Google search on "Evert-Fresh", a lot of places that sell them come up.

And, looking at further web articles describing people's experiences with them, most all opinions are positive. Especially given the fact that they can be washed and re-used, which cuts down on cost.

Have you ever tried freezing your bananas? We grow our own bananas so have a whole bunch ripen at a time (and that IS a BUNCH and not just a hand!). We don't grow them commercially - only for our own use and so it tends to be either feast or famine. So when it looks obvious that we can't keep up with them we just peel the fresh bananas - run them under cold water and straight into freezer bags and into the freezer. Then to use them - chop them up into pieces and into the blender with either milk, soya milk, or yoghurt - and you have the most delicious banana topping. Of course if you add more milk then you have a banana thick shake.

Ah, Mikk,

What you need is a Champion juicer through which you run your frozen bananas, maybe a few frozen berries, and it comes out like soft-serve. Yummy. Trouble is, I don't have Champion Juicer either. so I don't get any banana soft-serve either.

Where I live, most grocery stores carry a green disk that one puts in the produce drawer and it absorbs ethylene, and helps prevent fruit and vegetbles from going bad. Eventually they have to be replaced, buth my wife thinks they are well worth it.

Yes, she freezes bananas. She my buy a case of ripe ones, and simply freeze them, as has been priviously stated.

They work! Some of those Evert-Fresh bags arrived in the mail last week. I ordered some smalls and mediums from the company that makes them; http://www.evert-fresh.com

Sitting in the same place as usual on the kitchen counter, some bananas bought Sunday night are just as green right now as they were in the store. I have to take one out of the bag to let it ripen enough to eat. Ordinarily some of them would be approaching over-ripe by now. Cool!

[ July 25, 2002, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: John ]

Mikk,

What varities of bananas do you raise, I over winter a green & a red varity in the basement. I recently learned over the internet that they won't fruit unless the rootzone is warm enough. So this fall & winter they will get hotmats wrapped around their containers or put under them with plastic jug water jackets & bubble wrap insulation. Hope we get fruit at last.

John thanks for the update & URL.

The main variety of banana out here is the Cavendish - which is what we grow. There are also some "Lady Finger" variety grown. Also the "Gold Finger" variety was introduced a couple of years ago. Those red and green ones of yours sound very interesting Edward - although the overwintering inside sounds like a whole heap of extra work. However, I remember when we were children in New Zealand it was exciting just to SEE a banana plant - even though I don't remember any of them ever fruiting over there - maybe Zita knows if they do? The banana industry here is very carefully contolled by the government so that pests from other countries are kept out. In fact there was quite a fuss near where I live about a year ago when it was discovered that someone was growing a new variety - apparently brought in from Asia - HIGHLY ILLEGAL - and of course NO-ONE admits to bringing it into the country. How did you start your banana plants? Or maybe you got the plants from a nursery?

The original green one, was growing behind a house we rented in Theodore AL, and the original red one was a gift from a local grower near there. I still have a clone from the green one, but the present red one was bought in Mobile, AL and brought up.