Produce Gas By Linda Stowe
Produce can be provocative. By that I am not talking about the eggplant emoji or the ever-popular Chiquita Banana. I am referring to how some produce has an effect on other produce. It can provoke them.
While I would like to say that this is information that was passed down by my mother or was something I observed on my own, it is not. I had to learn about it on the Internet. I know. How pedestrian. But there it is.
For years I was frustrated by bananas that ripened almost overnight and onions that developed a dark mold. When this happened, I was irritated but I just assumed that I had somehow gotten hold of bad produce. Then I learned through listening to podcasts that my bananas and onions were being affected by other produce. It was time for me to do some research. But, as I learned from my research, bananas and onions are just the tip of the iceberg.
Apparently, I should avoid storing certain fruits and vegetables together because they can spoil each other. This is due to ethylene gas, a natural gas that some fruits and vegetables produce as they ripen. Common ethylene producers include apples, bananas, onions, and tomatoes. Conversely, produce that is especially vulnerable to ethylene includes avocados, cucumbers, leafy greens, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.
Early in my research I realized that the reason my bananas were ripening so quickly was because I kept them in a fruit bowl with apples. The apples and bananas were each giving off enough ethylene to ripen the other. The only fruit in the bowl that was unaffected by the gas were the navel oranges because citrus fruits are not sensitive to ethylene.
I was also misguided by storing my potatoes and onions together. The onions caused the potatoes to prematurely spoil and the moisture from the potatoes produced the dark mold on the onions. Now that I know all this, my food storage has become more complex. But my produce is lasting longer.
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Polly here.
And now you know.
We produce produce.
And it produces gas.
What a gas.
