Friday, May 29, 2009

Nutritional Science 101...well more like 99!

A little bit of Friday fun for you with a serious edge.

Ok with all the healthy eating going on in our house we have taken to buying our fruits and veggies in bulk; TGF Costco, Trader Joes and the local farm (yes we have moved so far out of LA that there are farms around here!) is all I can say!

While in Bed Bath and Beyond the other day this caught my eye; Debbie Meyer’s Green Bags, always willing to try something new and have a bit of fun I am pleased to present you the:

How Yellow is Your Banana Experiment.

Introduction; Bulk purchase of bananas have precluded them from being consumed before they become too ripe, the objective is to extend their fruit bowl life as long as possible (in fact they live on a banana hook, they don’t play nice with other fruit)!

Research; I read the back of the box and was totally suckered in by the advertising.

Method; One banana volunteered to be the test subject and was detached from a bunch. The volunteer banana was marked with a thick point sharpie to distinguish it from the rest. The remaining bunch was placed in a Green Bag, the remaining household scientists were instructed to “Do not touch the bananas”.

Equipment; well just in case you missed it, a bunch of bananas, a sharpie pen and a Green Bag.

Results; the results are visually documented below:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Conclusion; Visually the ‘bagged’ bananas freshness was extended (they look purty longer!), however with the exception of the obvious softness from bruising the actual consistency of the two bananas was very similar, the bagged bunch were not as firm as their appearance suggested. I will be trying them with other produce but as far as bananas are concerned, the Green Bags results were a FAIL!

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for this review! I have wondered about those bags. I freeze bananas when they get too ripe to eat. the frozen bananas work well in smoothies and baked goods.

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  2. i love bananas, but I am the only one in the house that will eat them so they tend to go bad around here. I might have to try those bags.. thanks for the report.

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  3. I haven't had any luck with the green bags either. Too bad really because it would be awesome if they actually worked.

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  4. What a fun experiment.

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  5. Thanks for doing the hard work and posting your results! I've seen those and have always wondered! Have a great weekend :)

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  6. Um, as a former Science Teacher, don't you think the Sharpee pen could have added an extra variable? To do the test correctly, all bananas or no bananas should have sharpee ink on them.

    *shrug* I like me some bananas.

    Wanna go to a great Farmer's Market? Calabasas! The best!

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  7. Another great review...thanks for the honesty and for sacrificing an otherwise good banana...

    I do really like Happy Runner's idea to freeze bananas...I'd never thought of that.

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  8. Pfffft! Too bad.

    But that is why I only buy 3 at a time. They go bad so quickly.

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  9. what a great experiment, i have wondered about these bags! too bad they are a bust so far :(

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  10. Well, it was worth a try, right?

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  11. Ms. V is right, all variables need to be the same. Interesting experiment and results.

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  12. Interesting experiment, thanks for sharing the results!

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  13. This was a great experiment. Just out of curiosity though, would it make a difference if the bag isn't opened for 7 days. The idea of the bag is to keep the gases released by the fruit from escaped. Now I know this would be crazy because how would you eat the fruit without opening the bag.

    I was just about to by them too.

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  14. Very interesting. I'd be inerested in a secondary sample that was just put in a plain old ziplock plastic bag. Though around my place, bananas rarely last that long. :)

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