Your grandmother has always put fruits in paper bags to mature faster – but does it actually work?

Most of the time we turn to Celebrity chefs or Food specialist to learn Tips and tricks To help us bring the heat to the kitchen. However, it is important to remember that the domestic chefs who came before us are full of insights, recipes and helpful tips that generations served. If practical tips are handed over by parents to child, the “why” can sometimes fade over time – but there is often a real explanation behind it.

So if we Guide a butter knife through our banana breadPresent Freeze our favorite cookiesor Use a wire gauge ball to wash our vegetablesWe think of grandma – but not the reasons for our actions. So we asked ourselves: What did Grandma know that we didn’t do it?

Why paper bags can mature fruits

For decades, if not hundreds of years, taking certain fruits in paper bags to accelerate the maturity. When we buy and want a rocky avocado Toast avocado In a day or two we put it in a paper bag to mature. We do the same for Green tomatoes The tire is not on the vines, bananas, peachers and so many other fruits. Grandma taught us how, but what does science have to say?

Climacteristics against non-climate fruits

In order for the fruit-in-a-bag-trick to work, you need to know whether your fruits are climacteristic. Climacteristic fruits are fruits that can mature after the harvest made of vine, branch or trunk. Pears, apples, mangoes, kiwis, cantaloupe and peaches are examples of climacteric fruits.

After an article from the University of MarylandObst is matured by creating a gas hormone called ethylene. In climacteric fruits there is an initial outbreak of ethylene production that begins ripening. As soon as ethylene begins to produce, it continues to do so – even from the vine.

However, non -climatic fruits do not have the big highlight of ethylene production to start ripening. These fruits have to stay on the plant to reach full ripeness. If they are harvested before the top ripe, they will “no longer ripen, win taste or sugar,” so Article by the Michigan State University. The frequent non-climified fruits include cherries, cucumbers, lemons, limes, pineapple, watermelon, zucchini and more.

The paper trick

When climacteric fruits are placed in a paper bag, ethylene gas accumulates and surrounds the fruits and accelerates the maturation process. Do you need your fruits that have matured fast? Put an already mature climber in her pocket next to the immature fruits; The ripening fruity will spend even more ethylene, According to a story from the national public radioAccelerate the maturation process.

There is another reason, apart from ethylene why paper bags can easily travel fruits. Obst produces carbon dioxide during its own “breathing” or respiratory process. After a study in Progress in food researchCarbon dioxide can actually extend the durability by inhibiting the maturation process.

“If this CO2 accumulates, there is less oxygen, then (fruit) will breathe less,” Said Juan Carlos MelgarProfessor and pomologist at Clemson University to NPR. “Your maturation will slow down.”

So during plastic bags and Tupperware If C02 caught with the fruits, paper bags are porous and enable CO2 to escape and create a great environment in which the fruits can mature.

Tricks that you should remember

Save products separately

You may have heard that you never keep an onion with potatoes, and it turns out that ethylene is also the culprit there. If you use the bag trick, you should maintain products that you want to keep away from products you want to ride away. Being near ethylene will accelerate the maturation process for these bananas or berries that you try to stay fresh. Keep those in the refrigerator so that the maturation process slow down and let the packaged fruits ripen faster on the counter.

Use this trick vice versa

If you want to keep your products, don’t mature. Try this reverse-o product (it is also approved by Grandma) This actually absorbs the ethylene gas, preserves the fruits and prevents it from maturing it too quickly.

This trick approved by Grandma is great if you have matured into lightning next time. What other tips and tricks did you learn from your oldest?