Best Method to Preserve Ripe Fruit

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If one had a piece of fruit at peak ripeness and flavor, for example a ripe yellow banana, how would you store it to keep it that way before sale?

 

[phands]

Spray this invisible, edible coating on produce and it will last five times longer

This is fairly new.....

From the time a farmer harvests strawberries or green beans, they will last — at best — three weeks before they start to rot. It takes a week or two to reach the grocery store and then your fridge, giving you only a few days to eat them.

A Santa Barbara-based startup called Apeel Sciences says it has invented edible coatings that can extend a fruit or vegetable's shelf life by as much as five times. That means, if you spray it on a ripe strawberry that's starting to wither it will last about a week longer than normal.

Made of leftover plant skins and stems, the coatings act as barriers that slow down the decay process. You can apply it to produce anytime during its lifespan — Apeel could even make a bunch of bananas grown at the same time each ripen on a different day.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apeel-sciences-food-edipeel-invisipeel-extend-life-2017-1

 

[steve_bank]

Eat it and store as fat.

As some fruit ripens it gives off a gas that affects other fruit. I believe it is why rail cars shipping fruit are backfilled with nitrogen.

Truy searching nitrogen fruit vegetable storage.

 

[bilby]

If one had a piece of fruit at peak ripeness and flavor, for example a ripe yellow banana, how would you store it to keep it that way before sale?

It's pretty much impossible to halt the ripening process for bananas. Cold storage will slow it, but bananas are particularly effective producers of ethylene (ethene), which acts as a ripening hormone for most fruit. The problem is not so much microbes or fungi or even oxygen getting to the fruit, as it is ethylene generated by the fruit itself - so any attempt to enclose the banana will make things worse, rather than better.

On the flip side, you can pick bananas while still green; ship them worldwide in cold storage, and then ripen them very fast by putting them in contact with ethylene under pressure. This was a common process used to bring bananas from the Caribbean to Europe in the days before airfreight, but it can be quite dangerous - ethylene readily forms an explosive mixture with air. Most ripening plants these days use 24 hours of exposure at standard atmospheric pressure to a 5% ethylene-95% nitrogen mixture. This is safe from explosion, but does present an asphyxiation hazard to workers.

So the answer is that once the fruit reaches peak ripeness, it's too late. If you want to store it, store it unripe (in cold, but not freezing, conditions), and ripen it as required when you are ready to eat it.

If you buy an unripe avocado, and want to accelerate it's ripening, simply putting it in a ziploc bag with a banana is a very effective technique. This works for other fruit too, but I find that typically it's avocados for which a very precise level of ripeness is critical to eating enjoyment.

To ripen a banana, put it in a ziploc on its own, and it will ripen pretty fast.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Eat it and store as fat.

As some fruit ripens it gives off a gas that affects other fruit. I believe it is why rail cars shipping fruit are backfilled with nitrogen.

Truy searching nitrogen fruit vegetable storage.

Now that's interesting. Thank you.

 

[Underseer]

Eat it and store as fat.

As some fruit ripens it gives off a gas that affects other fruit. I believe it is why rail cars shipping fruit are backfilled with nitrogen.

Truy searching nitrogen fruit vegetable storage.

Now that's interesting. Thank you.

He's right. Technically speaking, your body is better storage for those calories and nutrients than a 'fridge or a sandwich baggie.

I would say buy it in smaller quantities and eat it before it goes bad. If this is coming from your back yard, you're just going to have to give more of it away.

 

[skepticalbip]

Eat it and store as fat.

As some fruit ripens it gives off a gas that affects other fruit. I believe it is why rail cars shipping fruit are backfilled with nitrogen.

Truy searching nitrogen fruit vegetable storage.

Now that's interesting. Thank you.

Converting the oversupply of fresh fruit to preserves, jellies, marmalade, etc. or dehydration are age old storage techniques.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Go get a stasis generator from Larry Niven. (Many of his stories have them, he ought to know how to do it! )

 

[Speakpigeon]

This is fairly new.....

From the time a farmer harvests strawberries or green beans, they will last — at best — three weeks before they start to rot. It takes a week or two to reach the grocery store and then your fridge, giving you only a few days to eat them.

A Santa Barbara-based startup called Apeel Sciences says it has invented edible coatings that can extend a fruit or vegetable's shelf life by as much as five times. That means, if you spray it on a ripe strawberry that's starting to wither it will last about a week longer than normal.

Made of leftover plant skins and stems, the coatings act as barriers that slow down the decay process. You can apply it to produce anytime during its lifespan — Apeel could even make a bunch of bananas grown at the same time each ripen on a different day.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apeel-sciences-food-edipeel-invisipeel-extend-life-2017-1

I think I'm ripe myself. I'm going to try it on. Life is fun today.
EB