Your fruits and veggies are releasing a gas that makes them ripen faster — here's how to keep that from happening
Flickr/David Lenker
If you've ever been surprised to see your just-bought produce rot away faster than you'd hoped, take note: you could be putting the wrong fruits and veggies together.
Many fruits produce a barely detectable chemical called ethylene as they ripen. It's also often sprayed onto fruits and veggies to make produce ripen faster.
But too much ethylene can lead to a loss of chlorophyll (what happens when your leafy greens turn yellow or brown). And the more ripe an ethylene producer is, the more gas it produces. So if one piece of fruit is going bad, you should think about moving it away so that it doesn't speed things up for the others.
To help you figure out which produce to keep apart, we've compiled a list of produce that you should store on its own, produce that you should keep away from other fast-ripening produce, and fruits and veggies that you can store virtually anywhere.
Flickr/David Lenker
Store alone
These fruits and vegetables give off a lot of the gas and are also pretty susceptible to it:
- Apples
- Avocado
- Ripe bananas: If you want to slow the ripening process down, place plastic wrap over the stems. This should keep the ethylene from getting released.
- Cabbage
- Eggplant
- Lettuce
- Melons, including cantaloupe and honeydew
- Mangoes
- Mushrooms
- Nectarines
- Onions
- Pears
- Peaches
- Plums
- Squash
- Tomatoes
Flickr/David Lenker
OK to store together, but keep away from other fast-ripening produce
These fruits and veggies don't make a whole lot of ethylene on their own but are sensitive to it:
- Asparagus
- Broccoli
- Brussels sprouts
- Carrots
- Green beans
- Grapes
- Okra
- Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Watermelon
- Zucchini
Flickr/David Lenker
Store anywhere
These fruits and veggies fare alright in the face of ethylene gas, so store them anywhere:
- Bell peppers
- Berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc.)
- Citrus fruits, like lemons and limes
- Kale
- Pineapples, though they do produce some ethylene.
If you're looking for a quick way to remember it, as The Kitchn pointed out, it's mostly fruits that are the ethylene-makers, while vegetables are the ones more likely to feel the detrimental effects of ethylene gas.
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