How to Prepare Your Food Part 1 Shopping How to Choose Vegetables & Fruits

This video share about how to prepare your food Part 1, let’s go shopping and learn how to choose your vegetables & fruits.

One of the most troubling things I find when promoting fresh fruits and vegetables to people is that they don’t understand that many fruits have to ripen before being eaten.

Timing is everything—even when it comes to biting into a piece of fruit. Science shows that the antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, fat, and even calories in natural’s candy can vary significantly depending on its ripeness.

A little science lesson: When a fruit ripens, its starch is converted into sugar, making it softer and sweeter, says Joseph Scheerens, Ph.D., a horticulture professor at Ohio State University. Often there’s a loss of acidity and a change in color as well. In evolutionary terms, this makes the fruit more appealing texturally, taste-wise, and visually, which means it’s more likely to be eaten by animals and have its seeds dispersed.

These differences aren’t just aesthetic, though; there’s also a shift nutritionally. “The ripening process is a somewhat oxidatively stressful situation for plants, so they develop antioxidants to defend themselves against that stress,” Scheerens says. Great for that cherry or mango to survive, and even better for your body when you eat it.

We live in a world of instant gratification, but bananas are something that we should be patient with. Most of the bananas straight from the grocery store are not ripe enough to eat right when you get home, and I will tell you why.

If you eat a banana that is not ripe enough, it can be very unpleasant. They are slimy and not as sweet as a ripe banana. Unripe bananas are starchy and can cause digestive issues. If you wait the correct amount of time for it to ripen, it will be sweet and delicious.

Bananas are one of the most important fruits for people to learn how to eat properly because people eat them so frequently and don’t often enjoy them. They eat them because they have to for a snack or on top of cereal as they think it’s good for them.

In my recipes you will see that I stipulate RIPE bananas all the time. I want people to stop thinking that a ripe banana is simply a banana that is not really green anymore. A yellow banana that is rock hard and pale inside is NOT a ripe banana. This banana should not be eaten, not be put on your cereal, not be used in a smoothie and certainly not used for raw banana ice-cream. It tastes awful, mostly pasty, starchy and not very sweet. It’s going to ruin your breakfast or your recipe.

When you see bananas starting to get a few brown spots (and you think oh my gosh, but it’s rotting, it looks so ugly… maybe I should throw it away) please please wait. This banana is only starting to begin to ripen and not be so starchy and pasty. Before you eat a banana I want you to notice that it has LOTS and LOTS of brown spots, dark brown spots all over it. The peel is softening, the “neck” of the banana is no longer rock hard and it’s starting to wilt. Now you don’t have to wait for your banana to be all black, bruised and squishy. No no. If you have bruised or squishy bananas you don’t have to keep those on the counter. You can however peel them and freeze them for banana bread or for use in baking later if you wish (as this makes them taste better, not worse).

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