Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Who gives a shit?! Just put in your fucking mouths!

Idiots!

I'm so glad there are people in this world that care about this kind of stuff. Thank you for being alive fellow Serious Eaters.
As for bananas? I can wait until they're between dalmation and black lab. The black labs get put in banana bread.
*slurp*!

Once it starts turning brown and gettting spotty it goes to bread. I really don't think I could eat the overripe bits otherwise.

Brown spots are slimy and disgusting to eat straight up! However, I wait until they are ultra-soft, brown and slimy to freeze. These guys make the best banana bread and smoothies. For eating out of hand, for me, they have to be all yellow-even one freckle is too sweet and soft.

I love the bruises! They're sweeter than the rest of the banana. I've been eating them for years with no negative effects, so I'll go ahead and say they're safe.

My mother always used to use the brown bananas to make flaxseed and chocolate chip banana muffins!!!

raw over-ripe though?
no thanks.
im not down with the flavour profile.

Im not wasteful: I buy my bananners as I need them :) (dont worry happymuncher!!! I agree with your theory)

I used to get super grossed out by bruised bananas but lately I've been a lot more liberal with my overripe banana consumption.

Bruised bananas get frozen for breakfast smoothies later in the week.

Chef Todd Mohr

Eat it - often times it tastes a bit sweeter than the rest of the banana. Of course, I also eat everything but the stem when it comes to apples, including the core and seeds, so I may not be a good role model in this regard.

I eat the brown spots if they aren't huge. I think a banana really comes into its sweetness when the peel has a few brown spots on it. A perfectly yellow banana has an odd texture to me and coats my mouth and teeth with a strange filmy substance -- whereas a nice, ripe, banana (one with a brown spot or two on the peel) doesn't do that.

And I, like so many others, never throw away an over-ripe banana...I put those into bananas foster or banana pancakes or banana bread.

The more brown (naturally occurring, not bruising) means the more sugar in the banana. With a banana that is still green the starch to sugar ratio is 20 : 1, while a banana that is yellow and brown has a starch to sugar ratio of 1 : 20....so, the less green and more brown means a sweeter treat! I would guess that the 'bruised' parts of a banana are areas that have had their ripening process sped up (so also a sweeter taste (?), albeit with a mushier texture). The banana in the pic at the top is definitely perfect for me.

As for the organic stuff...bananas are one of the few fruits you can get away with not buying organically. Because of their thick outer skin, whatever chemical they might be sprayed with doesn't penetrate through to the fruit. Doesn't sound good about the child labor issues though (do you have a link to that article organicgal?), something to look into for sure. It is always a good thing to get fair trade whenever you can, I am just saying in terms of nutrition/chemicals, in this specific situation, organic is no better than conventional. You want to get disgusted, look into what is sprayed onto conventional strawberries, now there is a fruit to only buy organic!

Of course! I mostly use bananas in cereal/oatmeal so bruising isn't as obvious as out of hand eating. If it's peel and eat...I prefer not green but not overripe. Lots of bruising/browning...ditto above...banana bread, pancakes, smoothies, muffins, banana daiquiris...yum!

Please buy organic bananas...and fair trade also if possible! Not to be a groove killer but the majority of bananas are picked using child labor (NY Times did a great article about this a number of years ago) so at least have the kids not sprayed with toxins (that we've banned in the USA and they're using) while they're picking and packing our bananas! It's the least we can do and a first step in improving the lives of the young workers. More people wanting organic bananas, more organic production, less kids exposed to toxins.

i have such abiding admiration for ruth reichl's writing, but the magazine just hasn't been all that great since gail zweigenthal left. i mostly just read it now for the sterns, but even their column hasn't been as lovely since they split up. oh, well. there's still saveur, which i have come to prefer.