starchy green bananas ripen in a few days and changes into a sweet, delightfully satisfying fruit. But

let an unripe pineapple sit at room temperature for a few days, instead of turning sweeter, it starts to

spoil. Accordingly, scientists divide fruits into climacteric and non-climacteric types.

Climacteric fruits continue to ripen after the harvest, while non-climacteric fruits do not. It

pays to know about this difference when you buy and store your fruit. If the fruit belongs to the first

group, go ahead and buy it even if it is not fully ripe. It will finish ripening in your kitchen if you

store it properly.

But if you buy a non-climacteric fruit that is far from ripe, no matter how you store it, how

to coax it into softer and sweeter phase, it will not ripen any more. The way they picked it the way it

will remain. Its next stage of development is rotting. Strawberries are a good example of non-

climacteric fruit.

Below there is a long list of the two types of fruits. So you don’t need to pull out the list

each time you are shopping, here is an easier way to remember for the most common fruits that will

not ripen, no matter what you do are

èè cherries, grapes, pineapple, all berries, citrus fruits and melons. çç

Although scientists list apples under climacteric fruit, experience tells us that an unripe

apple is so slow to change for our purposes and we can call it a non-ripening fruit.

Here is a more extensive list of climacteric and non-climacteric fruits.

Climacteric Fruits

Non-climacteric fruits

Apple

Blueberry

Cherry

Grape

Grapefruit

Lemon

Lime

Apricot

Avocado

Banana

Cherimoya

Feijoa

Fig

Lychee

Kiwi

Melons

Mango

Nectarine

Papaya

Passion fruit

Peach

Olive

Orange

Pepper

Pineapple

Raspberry

Strawberry

Watermelon

Pear

Persimmon

Plum

Tomato

Climacteric fruits contain starch that enzymes convert into sugars during the ripening

process. These enzymes are organic catalysts that speed up the chemical reaction of ripening but

don't take part in the process. Once the fruit is fully ripe, you better use it fast because the enzyme

catalysts continue to act and convert your just-right fruit into rotten fruit. At full ripeness a

climacteric fruit has converted most of its starch into sugar.

If you cannot use ripe fruit immediately, the trick is to convert or destroy the enzymes and

stop the ripening process. You can do this three different ways:

. Heat the fruit to near boiling to deactivate the enzymes and stop the action completely.

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