I like mine with the spots JUST beginning. After they develop more than a few spots, I use them for banana bread. I love banana smoothies, just perfectly ripe bananas and plain or vanilla yogurt - YUM!

Not a story, and maybe everyone already knows, but if you store bananas in a bunch they ripen faster.
So, if you want them to stay longer, break them apart. They can still be together in the fruit bowl, just not attached.

I didn't know the trick about separating a bunch. Bananas are on my shopping list for tomorrow so I'll give it a try. Thanks.

Pre-spot. Not green, not freckly.

I eat one every day, sometimes just a small piece at a time. Have my last bite before bed.

I like them when they have maybe a little green still on them but are beginning to be more yellow. No brown spots. They taste too sweet to me at that point. DH likes them with some brown, so if I don't eat them he will.

My breakfast consists of a bowl of cut up fresh cantaloupe, honeydew melon, watermelon and a just ripe banana.

One time a neighbor made fried plantains. They were so good-tasted kind of like cornbread. I keep meaning to fry one but never do. Probably save it for my bucket list.

Have one almost every day in a breakfast smoothie. Don't like green ones at all. Yuck! Prefer not even a hint of green. We have a banana hanger which works great. The peel might have lots of brown spots, but the banana itself is spot free.

Just a question. How come I was paying 39 cents a pound for bananas in Massachusetts and they are 69 cents at Publix in Florida.

Fran consider yourself lucky! Here in Newfoundland we pay 99 cents a pound, lucky if they go on sale for 79 cents a pound!

I like my bananas with brown specks. If there is any hint of green at all I don't like them.

57 cents a pound at no frills type groceries, most of the time.

I have diuretic along with the squeezy socks for the varicose veins, and doc tells me to take banana and oranges regularly ... like daily. For the potash-yum.

If they have brown spots - eat 'em early ... and often the flesh doesn't have problems, inside.

ole joyfuelled ... with a bit o' fuelling help from medium yellow bananas

If you wrap the cut end in alum. foil, they last twice as long. I found that Saran Wrap works, too.

I like green apples and grapes, especially grapes.

I am a greenish yellow banana eater. When they are completely yellow they seem too strong and too sweet to me. I will never eat a banana with brown spots :-) They are good in banana bread though.

My 2 (can a stalk be 2??) are brought home broken apart and ripen fast. But I don't mind being brown, the banana inside is still fine. Thought I heard that refrigeration speeds up the darkening, which some people want black bananas for cooking.
Glad they have a ripening cycle which permits each of us to choose the time to eat. No matter when, the peels are still slippery.

Slightly underripe bananas (yellow with a bit of green on the stem end) rank lower on the glycemic index, so I've always been glad I prefer them that way.

Casey, 99 cents a pound is too much. I always shake my head at paying 79 cents.

I like my banana yellow but with a bit of green. I don't like to eat ripe bananas (they go into the freezer). My dog loves bananas too, he always gets the top and the bottom piece after I peel it and like cheese he is right there when I start to peel it. If I try to give him a piece of ripe banana he spits it right out haha like me he prefers it on the green side.

When y'all finish your bananas, pitch the peel into the compost or the flower bed, especially the rose garden.

Plants appreciate the potassium!

I've heard that banana peels under roses keep aphids away. And that the more freckles a banana has its potassium becomes more available. I have to admit, I've never had aphids on my roses.

I am definitely in the minority. I like them fairly green. All yellow, and they go to my husband. This morning, I fixed fruit for both of us. In addition to raspberries, strawberries and blackberries, he got the yellow banana and I got the almost all green one. Both happy eaters!

I heard somehwere that for good taste, or taste we in northern climes are accustomed to, bananas have to be picked green and then ripen off the tree. If allowed to fully ripen on the tree, the taste is different and the product does not have enough "lifetime" left for shipping to markets.

I do not know if this is true. What have you heard?

What I can add partially answers your question and partially doesn't.

There are dozens of different banana types but it's mostly just one variety (called Cavendish) that's used for the "grow in the tropics and ship to temperate locations" business. They're picked green (which stops ripening) to help the fruit deal with the time and handling required for shipping. This particular variety deals with that effectively and the ripening process is restarted once here by exposing the fruit to some kind of gas.

Cavendish replaced a different variety (previously used for the long distance trade) in the late 1950s that had been destroyed by a fungus. The two varieties don't taste the same (something I remember from childhood when the switchover happened). I saw or heard a story in the last few months (maybe a podcast?) that the Cavendish is now being threatened by some disease and the hunt is on to find a replacement.

One of the many treats of going to tropical places (in my case, it's been Hawaii and Pacific islands) is to eat unfamiliar local banana varieties. They're typically smaller than a Cavendish, often much sweeter, and often with delicious and unusual flavors.

Picking, and shipping green seems to be true. Store shelves always vary, from hard green, to yellow, sometimes yellow with spots forming. No one has mentioned bananas dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts. Healthy!