I've heard that bananas in the fridge will keep longer. I also heard that bananas in the fridge will brown, but it's just the skin and not the actual fruit (which keeps longer). I have always been afraid to try this because I have kids. You know how it is.
Yes, honey, the banana has a brown spot. If you cut it out, the rest of the banana is good.
And yet, the kids won't believe a word that you say because their brain is all "but the banana is brown" and then the banana sits there and really does rot and I have to throw it away. I get peeved when I throw food away. This generally is coupled with an inquisition on who wasted food and why. My kids love when I do that.
But because of the fruit flies, I put the bananas in the fridge. It was dicey, I know. I was taking the chance of having to throw out a whole bunch of bananas, but I figured if push came to shove, we'd be having banana bread for breakfast.
Two days passed. Nobody ate a banana. If I mentioned it, the kids would balk like a dog at the vet. And then someone had the brilliant idea to ask me why bananas were in the fridge and I had the opportunity to tell them that even though the skin was brown, the banana itself was still fresh and good.
Each kid had to try this theory for themselves. Huh, mom was right. And I'll be darned if I didn't see at least two kids eat a banana daily until they were all gone.
Maybe I should change the location of foods more frequently and make up weird reasons why. I'll bet I'd never waste food again.
15 comments:
Love it. My husband has his own secret system against the fruit flies that involves vinegar and a funnel.
The brown bananas though? I've steadfastly refused to let the wee ones know that the brown bananas are icky (once they're no longer green, I won't eat them) and instead insist that the brown parts are simply "sweeter." So far, so good!
Fruit flies are the worst...we got a bad case of them here:(
LOL! The children in this house think bananas are for science experiments only these day. Talk about the Spanish Inquisition over wasted food.
Does this trick still work if the fruit flies insist on living in the fridge? I'm just wondering.
Karen - fruit flies will live in the fridge?! Great, now I'm in trouble for sure. The way the kids leave the door open...
Who knew? Now if I can just convince Jenni. I hate it when after a few days the bananas start to brown, and... well, you know. They just aren't as appealing to the kids. Who am I kidding, me either. At least they work for banana bread though. Now if I can just find a way to enjoy it, in bread form.
As for fruit flies in the refrigerator, you can always put the bananas in the freezer, I'm pretty sure that even the hardiest of flies won't survive that. And frozen banana isn't too bad, especially when dipped in chocolate. :)
Oo! I like the way you think! We use frozen banana chunks in protein shakes for breakfast. Keeps me from having to throw them out.
Great trick to get rid of the fruit flies. Mix 1/2 c water, 1 T sugar, 1 T cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap in a small bowl and set it on the counter in the general location of the fruit flies. The little suckers will be attracted to the sweet/sour of the vinegar and sugar. When they touch the dish soap, their wings get coated and they fall in and die. May take a day or two to get them all. I mix a fresh batch daily.
no kidding about the bananas in the fridge. Wish I would have known about this through the summer. I don't have to worry about them keeping longer now that it's fall - it's a cool 65 degrees in this house now!
well, I will have to try this bananas in the fridge! I'm with anonymous up there - but put a paper funnel in there as well - gone those pesky bits will be!
You can peel banana's and then put them in the freezer to use for baking. Assuming that you bake and that your children might not eat all the banana's on another occasion. Do you think that they will not eat bananas that are not in the fridge now? Kids work like that sometimes. When they grow up and have their own family they will always keep bananas in the fridge and when some one asks why they will say...because my mother did. No one will remember anything about the fruit flies. I hate those stupid things too.
If that's how it is with kids, what's my excuse? Until recently, I totally base whether or not I'd eat something on how "perfect" it looked.
Now that I'm buying more organic, I'm learning that food is still good even if it doesn't look perfect. Or maybe it's because we are rearranging where things are in the kitchen...
I have TWO bananas languishing in the fruit bowl saying "bread me, bread me!"
I'm one of those "brown bananas??" girls! But we are breeding fruit flies and I'm all about some banana bread if they get too brown in the fridge....
anything to get rid of those little pesky flies!
I just threw out a bunch of bananas that my hubby put in the fridge by accident which were brown. I didn't even think to check the fruit itself!
When I used to tend bar, this time of year was awful. There isn't a way known to man to keep fruit flies out of sugary stuff like sloe gin...yuck. I still shudder to think how many glasses were returned with the little buggers stuck to the ice cubes.
Im glad to have read your blog and learned something new for the aday! thanks for the recipe.....now where do you file a recipe to kill fruit flies where you will find it?!
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