Ways to tell ‘chemical ripe fruit’ and how to safely ripen fruits

Assortment of fruits (Photo: Courtesy)

When I was growing up in the village, I used to see my grandmother store bananas by covering them with dry banana leaves. Sometimes, she would keep the bananas in a room near the cooking place where fire was lit regularly. She did this to hasten ripening.

There is an old man in the village who used to dig a hole, place dry bananas leaves inside the hole and burn them. This was then followed by placing fresh leaves on top of burnt leaves and then bananas on top which are then covered with more leaves. The bananas would ripen in record time. That time, I never understood the science behind these fruit ripening practices. Later when I joined campus, I came to learn in one of the post-harvest lectures that what these practices were doing was to increase production and accumulation of high levels of ethylene to hasten ripening of bananas. Hastening ripening is such a simple process. I will explain.