(These bananas look great now, but they'll be brown before you know it.Mike Mozart/Flickr)

Buying a bunch of bananas often results in a race against time.

How many can you eat before the rest turn too brown, soft, and downright unappetizing to eat?

What many banana-eaters may not know is there's a way to slow down the ticking clock of ripening: plastic wrap.

Next time you buy a bunch of bananas, separate them and then wrap a small section of plastic wrap around each banana's stem.

The plastic wrap helps contain ethylene gas, which bananas produce naturally while they ripen. Without the plastic wrap, the ethylene gas spreads to other parts of the fruit, helping it ripen faster.

So basically, you're trapping the gas in order to prevent it from speeding up the ripening process.

Separating the bananas works for the same reason. When bananas are connected by their stem, certain bananas that are farther along in the ripening process will spread their ethylene gas to the others connected to them. One bad apple — or banana — spoils the bunch.

This method won't completely stop your bananas from ripening, but it will slow the process down, and probably save a bunch of them from ending up in the trash.

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