Anonymous wrote:Is it just me? It seems as though bananas go from green to brown / mushy without ever being actually ripe. I've tried buying at a variety of different stores.
Costco is an absolute no go.
Harris Teeter and Wegmans are so so...

What gives?

No problem here. The store I shop at wraps red tape around them and drops the price 30 cents a pound as soon as they get yellow with freckles and I snap them up.

I find Whole Foods bananas to be the worst. Straight from green to brown, spotted, and inedible.

Safeway and Giant marginally better.

I heard somewhere that what we currently have is the cavendish banana, and it is not what people ate a few decades ago. Apparently the old variety got wiped out by pests. They say the current variety is also at risk of being wiped out by pests so they are trying to come up with a new resistant variety.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Costco bananas are gross. We stopped buying them a long time ago.

+1. Costco has bad bananas. I have not noticed this from any other store.

Costco produce in general is terrible.

I think some are frozen and those are the ones that have the weird texture.

I have noticed the bananas purchased through most any grocery store chain has changed. Yes green the yellowish to mush. No flavor at all. There are a few exceptions, have tried locating the Dole bananas which have been better than the Chiquita bananas. Hit & miss with all, there have been big changes within the last several years, why? who knows

You need to buy them when they are green and yellow.

Ever since I went to Peru and ate bananas there, I've found US bananas sad and boring. Low to no flavor, odd texture, kinda unpleasant.

Never had this problem. We buy at Whole Foods, Safeway, Moms, Trader Joes.

The organic ones at Whole Foods are the best!

I buy the ones that are mostly green ( not quite ripe) at Trader Joes. I keep them in the fridge cause I like them cold. They last longer that way.

All the bananas are genetic clones of one another. They are exactly the same. Different retailers and suppliers may be treating them differently during shipping. Produce is commonly picked underripe and packed without gasses that hasten ripening.
This could be a cause.

Organic Whole Foods bananas are the worst.

Anonymous wrote:Probably not what you’re talking about. Hr thought this article on the change in banana flavor was super interesting — https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/history-of-the-gros-michel-banana

So interesting. Thanks for sharing.

OP I definitely have encountered similar banana struggles!

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the problem is you are buying them too underripe. If they are quite green, they are just not going to ripen properly- they were picked too soon. Don’t get them if they are any more the just slightly green at the top, but mostly yellow.

I have news for you. All bananas are picked green. They are transported to a central warehouse where they are ‘gassed’ to a certain ripeness. Then they are distributed to different regional warehouses and then stores. There is a problem with how they are gassing them then.