Organic bananas are grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or other chemicals. While conventional bananas are sprayed with ethylene gas so they will ripen after the long journey from Central America or Africa to your local grocery store, many organic bananas are not treated and may not ripen to your satisfaction. Fortunately, all bananas contain a natural supply of ethylene gas; you simply have to help it do its job to ripen the fruit.
To survive the long trip overseas undamaged, bananas are cut while they are still green. Bananas, like many other fruits, emit ethylene gas, which helps to speed up the ripening process. After a load of conventional bananas arrives at a regional warehouse, distributors place them in ripening chambers, where carefully controlled temperature and humidity, along with constantly circulating air, help the gas to circulate evenly among the bananas. Many distributors pump extra ethylene gas into the chambers to speed up the ripening process. Distributors of organic bananas, in an effort to keep their product's distribution process natural, may not add use additional ethylene gas in the ripening chambers.
As ethylene gas circulates around bananas, the gas converts starches in the fruit into sugars, such as sucrose, glucose and fructose, which make the banana taste sweet. The color of ripening bananas changes from dark green to light green and, finally, yellow. As starches in the banana begin to break down, the texture of the fruit softens. The amount of ethylene gas that organic bananas emit naturally may not be enough to properly ripen the fruits before they are shipped to the grocery store.
If your organic bananas won't ripen, place them in a single layer in a brown paper bag and cover with a moistened kitchen towel to trap the ethylene gas emitted by the fruit. To speed the process even more, place one or two ripe apples in the bag with the bananas -- apples give off high levels of ethylene gas. Fold the top of the bag down and place it in a warm, draft-free location, such as inside a closed pantry or closet. Check the bananas at least once a day so they don't get too ripe; most organic bananas will ripen in two to three days using this method.
Once your organic bananas have ripened, store them in the refrigerator to halt the ripening process if you don't plan to eat them with a couple of days. The banana peels will turn brown, but the fruit inside will remain at the same level of ripeness. Use the bananas within seven days.