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Spray to stop bananas rotting: New product can keep fruit fresh for two weeks
Dailymail.co.uk ^ | 08/22/12 | By Fiona Macrae Science Correspondent

Posted on 09/12/2012 7:32:12 PM PDT by southern rock

Spray stops bananas breathing through their skin and kills the bacteria that make them rot

It is derived from shrimp and crab shells

Growers, supermarkets, even consumers could one day buy the experimental spray

A spray that stops bananas from rapidly turning to mush is being developed by scientists.

When used to coat green bananas, it slowed their ripening and so kept them fresh for almost a fortnight.

By contrast, supermarket-bought bananas often go brown and soggy within two or three days.

It is believed that the spray could help save some of the 1.6million bananas thrown away in Britain every day.

Dr Xihong Li, who made the spray from chitosan, a substance derived from shrimp and crab shells, said: ‘We found that by spraying green bananas with a chitosan aerogel, we can keep bananas fresh for up to 12 days.

‘Once bananas begin to mature, they quickly become yellow and soft, and then they rot.

‘We have developed ways to keep bananas green for a longer time and inhibit the rapid ripening that occurs.

‘Such a coating could be used at home by consumers, in supermarkets or during shipment of bananas.’

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Agriculture; Food; Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: bananas; frankenfood; shellfish; vegan
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Ok, this really bothers me. If this spray is used, bananas would no longer be suitable for vegetarians and vegans, not to mention people with shellfish allergies. Pretty disgusting. I would never knowingly buy fruit tainted this way. Please, just leave fruit and vegatables alone already! Our food is tainted enough.
1 posted on 09/12/2012 7:32:17 PM PDT by southern rock
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To: southern rock

2 or 3 days? They look fine and not too yellow at the store and by the time I’m washing them (I wash everything) they are already looking bruised. What’s up with that?


2 posted on 09/12/2012 7:34:56 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (0bama's agenda—Divide and conquer. FREEDOM OR FREE STUFF- YOU GET ONE CHOICE, CHOOSE WISELY)
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To: southern rock
Our food is tainted enough.

Yeah, because food in the 1850s was so much safer and better, if you don't count the ergot fungus outbreaks, milk fever, bad meat, and high number of food poisoning deaths, and little stuff like that.

Food fetishists are a half bubble out of plumb.

/johnny

3 posted on 09/12/2012 7:35:44 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: southern rock

They’ll last a fortnight, that is funny.


4 posted on 09/12/2012 7:35:57 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Aug. 27, 2012-Mitt Romney said his views on abortion are more lenient than the Republican Platform)
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To: southern rock
"no longer be suitable for vegetarians and vegans"

Aw, that's a shame.


5 posted on 09/12/2012 7:41:53 PM PDT by I see my hands (It's time to.. KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHER FREEPERS!)
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To: southern rock
Blimey!

They downt know 'ow t'make 'nana bread?

6 posted on 09/12/2012 7:42:20 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: southern rock
If customers want a product, the market will provide it.

Don't interfere.

7 posted on 09/12/2012 7:42:46 PM PDT by Praxeologue
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To: ansel12
Food fetishists have NO sense of humor. They obsess over everthing they eat. They are a pain in the arse.

They are also generally pretty clueless about the real history of food.

I should have compassion, but I just tend to point and laugh.

/johnny

8 posted on 09/12/2012 7:44:52 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Kennard

Think: Sex toys.


9 posted on 09/12/2012 7:45:14 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: southern rock

why not just eat em?


10 posted on 09/12/2012 7:46:59 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Kennard
Don't interfere.

That's the hardest thing for nanny staters (including food fetishists) to do. In fact, they don't.

There should be a law, and men with guns to enforce it.... ;)

/johnny

11 posted on 09/12/2012 7:47:30 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: TribalPrincess2U

I noticed this with bananas recently. Appear to be just turning yellow from green, by a day or two, peal them and they are bruised in inner core already rotting. Sliced them and ate for 2 days, 2nd day I felt sick from them. No more of those for me.


12 posted on 09/12/2012 7:48:07 PM PDT by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: JRandomFreeper

yeah chickens rinsed with Clorox are so much better


13 posted on 09/12/2012 7:48:20 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: TribalPrincess2U
They look fine and not too yellow at the store and by the time I’m washing them (I wash everything) they are already looking bruised.

Try the gentle fabric cycle. Much gentler wash action.

14 posted on 09/12/2012 7:48:26 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature not nurture TM)
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To: JRandomFreeper

I think it was Michael Savage who pointed out that morality has shifted from sex to food. A housewife in the 1950s, unless Kosher and Jewish, didn’t care where her food came from or its ingredients, but was careful on staying chaste until marriage and faithful while married. Food was free for all while sex was constrained. Now we worry about whether it is locally grown, organic, have fights over vegetarian and vegan as holier than thou, but sex is a free for all.
We moved our morality from the bedroom to the kitchen.


15 posted on 09/12/2012 7:49:38 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: JRandomFreeper
The spray, which is being developed at Tianjin University of Science and Technology in China

All I need to know.

16 posted on 09/12/2012 7:49:59 PM PDT by southern rock
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To: driftdiver
I rinse chickens that I kill here on the property with Clorox solution. My body can handle the chloride (which goes away over time), but it can't handle salmonella.

/johnny

17 posted on 09/12/2012 7:50:58 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: I see my hands
Aw, that's a shame

It is. Bananas should be vegetarian. What a concept!!

18 posted on 09/12/2012 7:51:02 PM PDT by southern rock
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To: JRandomFreeper

You might try cooking the chickens


19 posted on 09/12/2012 7:52:21 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: driftdiver
why not just eat em?

Why should fruit be tainted with fish parts?

20 posted on 09/12/2012 7:53:41 PM PDT by southern rock
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