Why sell and buy green bananas. How to cook and eat green bananas

Bananas are very common in Thailand. This is one of the cheapest fruits. Bananas are eaten fresh, made into smoothies, baked into pancakes, made into chips, and even fried.

Bananas are even used in tax optimization, this was discussed in the article “Why are bananas grown in the center of Pattaya, is it really so profitable?”.

In addition to large and small yellow bananas familiar to all of us, you could see exactly the same, large and small, but green bananas.

If you have tried to open an unripe green banana, then you know that it is something sticky and inedible inside. So why sell green bananas? Why are they bought, and what is prepared from green bananas?

See also: Why sell and buy green mangoes. How to bring mango from Thailand

Green bananas are not recommended to eat!

Firstly, green bananas, although not poisonous, are said to cause terrible gas formation, so they are highly discouraged from eating.

Thais fry green bananas and make snacks from them that are unlikely to interest you.

But green bananas are not sold for this at all.

In fact, having bought green bananas, they are simply stored until they ripen.

Green bananas ripen from several days to a week.

Why buy green bananas?

First, they are usually cheaper. The same store can sell both yellow and green bananas, with the yellow ones being more expensive. That is, you can buy yellow bananas and start eating them immediately after purchase, or save money and buy green ones, but you can eat them only after a few days.

Secondly, green bananas are easier to transport. Yellow bananas, depending on the degree of ripeness, can be soft. You need to transport them carefully: they should not be put on the bottom of the bag and filled with other products, and you should not put bunches of bananas on top of each other. As for the greens, they can be treated much less scrupulously.

Thirdly, sometimes only green ones are sold. In some stores for sale, they lay out a large number of bananas, which gradually ripen. They are bought in various degrees of maturity, simply because there is no other alternative.

How to wait for bananas to ripen. How to store bananas

Green bananas are placed anywhere where they do not get in the way. It doesn't matter if it's under the sun or not. They don't need to be refrigerated!

Thais prefer not to store even ripe bananas in the refrigerator, because they are sure that bananas immediately begin to darken in the cold.

However, if the banana has already begun to darken, then you need to either eat it faster, or still put it in the refrigerator so that it does not deteriorate.

This is how, for example, bananas may look after purchase (they can be even greener).

After 4 days they are already ripen and can be eaten. Only the tips are still a little green.

The next day, the bright yellow color of some bananas changed to yellow-white – now it's definitely time to eat.

After a couple more days (the first bunch of bananas had already been eaten), the green tips almost completely disappeared.

The next day, there was no trace of the green tips at all – the bananas were fully ripe. They can still be stored for several days, but it is better to eat now.