you you hey guys this is Andrew Pereira raw-food HealthNet and today I want to tell you a little bit about plantain ripening now plantains are technically of the same species of as bananas they're not a separate fruit but where they really differ is in their water content and plantains averaged roughly a 65% of their content from water but banana is on average are about 83 percent water and hydrolysis which is the process by which starches get converted into sugars and fruit happens quicker in higher water content fruit and so what you see is that there's a dramatic difference between the ripening time of banana and that of a plantain now plantains are interesting because they're more calorie dense than bananas they frequently are lower in price per pound than bananas and so if you can master the ripening process you can actually get a really tasty low-cost source of calories to help you on your raw food diet so the taste of a plantain if you've never had a ripe one or you only have them cooked in a starchy state is interesting it's definitely different than bananas it's more dense it's more sweet some of them actually taste vaguely like pumpkin pie like though I realize you know that's kind of a weird statement to make um so what you have to keep in mind when ripening plantains is that it's more challenging than bananas because uh what happens is these bananas will go from completely green to ripe enough state to eat in seven to eleven days and obviously that depends on the weather is it warm is it cold what's the humidity level is the ethylene gas being produced being trapped around the fruit or is it just dispersing that kind of thing and it's similar for plantains but I've had plantains that have actually taken like three to four weeks to ripen and as you can see whereas if you've got a banana that was this black it would be completely bad but when it's when a plantain is this right it's actually just approaching perfection so now what happens what you have to be careful for is you want to avoid having the plantains get mouldy so they have to be in a very well ventilated space if the weather is very humid you're going to have more problems with mold and such um so it's best actually I've had good luck with ripening plantains in the winter even though it's colder it takes longer because heaps he quickens up the ripening process but they're less likely to go mouldy in a drier environment less humid and so basically you just gotta keep them in a nice area that's well ventilated some people would say exposing the sunlight frankly I've been too lazy to do that never really experiments with it but if you can do it it really is worth your time so as you can see um very very different the consistency when it's completely ripe is very squishy squishy ER than this banana quite a bit squishier but as you're testing it I do not suggest that you prod it a lot because if you start prodding it it's in like pushing in the flesh a lot it's going to go bad and you're going to attract fruit flies and such so um you might notice that there's some mold that or just some mildew I guess growing here and this is the problem and because I kept it in a vet well-ventilated space the ripening didn't tape they didn't it didn't grow all that much and become an actual problem it's just on the outside of the skin there was no problem on the inside but had I not paid and how do I put it in a in a really wetter space it would have been so you can just slice open a plantain like this now as you can see it's got a nice yellow tinge to the flesh and you can easily add these to smoothies or eat them playing really tasty and one thing I want to mention is that plantains by the time they've gotten this ripe which is way way away from being totally right just so you know this is nowhere near being right even though it looks like if it was a banana it would be right but you can usually find them in this state or less ripe even being sold in overripe bins in grocery stores and they're usually like they've been cut to 25 or 50 percent of their initial price so how often do is I'll just go to the grocery store when I want plantains and just go to the overripe bin because most people don't know that you can actually write them they just assume they're just for cooking they're just starches but they're just thing be just a sweet and amazing as any banana so go get them cheap you can also go to your wholesaler and buy them usually at a lesser price per pound in bananas and just go down thanks see you later for my article in picture guide on how to ripen plantains including more tips check out my article at raw food health net you'll find a link in the video notes