Bananas last longer if you ditch the fruit bowl and store them with 1 simple item

Bananas are a simple yet sweet way to start the day, but they can often be a waste of money as they tend to spoil quickly even if you just bought them a few days ago. I used to be reluctant to buy bananas and most of a bunch would end up brown, spotty and in the bin, but it turns out I was storing them in the wrong place.

It might make sense to put your bananas in a fruit bowl, but this is actually the worst place to put them in the kitchen as they will begin rotting if stored next to other fruit. That may sound strange, but most fruit produces ethylene, a invisible gas which ripens fruit to make it taste sweeter, but too much of it in the air will speed up the ripening process.

If bananas are piled next to other fruit then the ethylene overload will cause them to begin spoiling rather than ripening, so they will not stay fresh.

Bananas tend to produce the highest amount of ethylene which is why you need to keep them out of your fruit bowl otherwise they will cause everything to rot and decay.

I only discovered that bananas should not be in a fruit bowl recently after I unloaded my shopping and accidentally left them on the corner of a kitchen worktop for a few days.

I noticed that they were much fresher and more yellow, so ever since I have been keeping them in a bowl far away from any other fruit.

This will keep bananas fresh for at least a week, but if you want to keep them tasty for even longer then you simply need to wrap the stems in tin foil.

After doing a little research on food storage online, I found out that bananas produce ethylene from their stems, and wrapping them up will greatly slow down the gas.

It means there will be less ethylene in the air, and my experiment showed this keeps bananas fresh for at least 10 days but I have had many last up to 14 weeks or even longer.

Tin foil is the best protection for bananas as cling film seals the stems too tightly and can trap moisture, which can actually encourage mould growth.

Baking paper is a really breathable material, so ethylene will just easily escape so it is not effective while tin foil will seal bananas properly while also keeping out moisture.

I have been storing my bananas this way for months and this small chance has kept my bananas bright yellow for weeks rather than days and helped me save a little on my food shop.