Honestly, This Is the Only Way Bananas Should Be Sold

My bananas were fine when I got them four days ago. I was so happy to see the bananas were all perfectly ripe at the grocery store, so I bought a big bunch. My toddler ate two, I froze three for banana ice cream, and now the last one is sitting on the counter — an overripe, mushy brown mess. I feel like it’s daring me to throw it away.

This always happens with bananas. If you get a ripe bunch, the last one will get mushy by the time you get to it. If you get green bananas, you have to wait to eat them — and then once they’re ready, the last one will still be overripe by the time you get to it. But that’s no longer necessarily the case if you live in Korea because, according to Grub Street, a Korean grocery store has invented a new way to sell bananas that are always perfectly ripe.

Blogger and Twitter user @AskAKorean revealed this week that the E-Mart chain of stores in Korea has solved the banana problem with a “One a Day Banana” pack that contains six bananas at different stages of ripeness.

The banana pack is a very pretty yellow-to-green ombré color, and it also ensures a person will always have a ripe banana on hand.

The first banana in the pack is perfectly ripe and ready to eat right away, the next is a little less ripe, but will probably be ready to slice over your cereal the following morning. All the way on the right, the last banana is bright green and nowhere near ripe enough to eat. But by the time you get through the other bananas, that one will be perfect.

E-Mart’s One a Day Banana is only available in Korea, but it’d be easy to assemble one’s own in the produce aisle. Just grab one of each banana until you have your own pretty yellow-green rainbow. This would also mean you wouldn’t need that plastic container (cheers to the environment!).

I wonder if my store would get mad if I started buying them this way? Let’s find out.

What do you think of E-mart’s One-a-Day Banana?