Question
I've heard you shouldn't keep bananas in a bowl with other fruit. But they all look so happy together.
What I'd like to see is hard science here. Or at least documented and repeatable observation. For example, I read lots of people saying simply "it's the ethylene gas", but what's eluded my searching eye is a chart of which common fruits emit how much of this gas, or the ripening effect of x amount of this gas for y duration at z distance from other fruits in the vicinity. I'd do an experiment myself, but I don't have any particular biology expertise to properly structure a control, etc., and maybe it's already been done?
While I'm not saying this oft-heard claim is false, I am saying I've neither been convinced that it's verifiably so as far as having been proven, nor convinced that any ripening-hastening is of significant concern (shortens the life of a banana by a day or more). If it is, we'll have to issue a cease-and-desist order to my household regarding the convenient stacking of all our colorful fruit friends in one place.
Follow-up inquiry: Even if this banana ripening-rate-quickening is true for apples and oranges, are there certain fruits that are okay to leave in the bowl with bananas?
Answer
For Apples, see:
- The Role of Ethylene in Determining Apple Harvest and Storage Life, in the May 1986 Post Harvest Pomology Newsletter, Vol. 4(1)
There are also various websites that give instructions if you'd like to do experiments yourself (generally geared towards classroom instruction):
- http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryexperiments/ss/ethyleneexp.htm
- http://botany.org/bsa/misc/mcintosh/badapple.html
... but for a more complete list, go to Google Scholar, and search for 'ethylene' + whatever fruit you're interested in; you'll find stuff going back many, many decades.
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