Amazingly I have too many ripe bananas - we are enjoying a very unusual hot spell here in the uk.

Can they be frozen - I don't want to make icecream with them, I tried once and it wasn't nice - maybe I didn't do it right. Is it possible to freeze them and then defrost them to use in smoothies? Should I peel them before freezing them, slice them?

Ideas please

Peel them and then freeze in a ziplock. Smoothies are a great idea. Thawed out bananas are not the best to eat (texture) but you could definitely eat them if you want. Perhaps in a fruit salad. But smoothies would be perfect.

As far as ice cream I LOVE it. I just throw in a couple frozen bananas chopped up to make it easier on my blender, add about 1/4-1/2 almond milk or water and blend. Then I add a little vanilla extract and depending on how I want it flavored I add additional fruit or cocoa powder. I usually like chocolate so I just throw in a heaping spoon of cocoa powder. You can add nuts, cacao nibs, chunks of fruit...whatever floats your boat. I love fresh chopped mint in my chocolate icecream and chopped walnuts too.

If you want a healthy banana ice cream, I'd just add water and/or another type of fRESh fruit to it. what kind of tool do you use?

yes, definitely peel first and chop and put in containers or baggies.

It is a toss up on peeling them first;

I used to, but now I just freeze them in the peels & slice them off when I'm ready to make smoothies or ice cream. They peel right off easily with a good knife.

I learned to do that after seeing that many on other raw forums freeze them peel & all...

I peel and slice them before freezing, making it easy to add the pieces to a smoothie. I killed one (cheap) blender by asking it to blend a whole frozen banana. The frozen slices do fine.


My favorite raw vegan

I put frozen slices in smoothies too, also frozen bananas may not do to well when defrosted in many raw recipes, but there are some non-raw they work well in:/... me, im really looking forward to making ice cream with mine... defrosted bananas that have been frozen may work for a raw banana pudding... although at least for me, banana pudding just isnt the same without nilla wafers...

ok thanks every one - I'm going to have another go at making ice cream - I just hope my blender is up to it. I have a Waring Pro - it's supposed to be able to crush ice although I have never tried. I will peel and slice the bananas.

Thanks

flipperjan, do you have a food processor? I use my food processor for ice cream making and my blender for smoothies and other more liquid-y things.


My favorite raw vegan

Yes I have a rather elderly food processor. When I process the frozen bananas with some fruit and water etc - do I then need to return it to the freezer? - not sure what to expect.

Depends on what consistency you like. I prefer a soft serve type consistency so usually I eat my ice cream as soon as it is done in the blender. If you like it more like ice cream from the store then you can throw it back in the freezer for a bit.

A juicer makes a good frozen banana ice cream; it ends up like soft serve. I am going to try this with frozen mango next : )

I make banana ice cream with a single gear juicer (omega), it comes out very firm since there is no liquid added.
I freeze them peeled, I find the skins very hard to get off even with a good knife. Much more work than just peeling them first too, that's lickety banana split!

First thing im gonna do when I get my omega 8004 on thursday, is make banana blueberry sorbet... then when I pick up some strawberries, some strawberry cantaloupe sorbet, or maybe strawberry banana or add some pineapple in there, maybe a little lime juice for extra tang...the possibilities, areonly slightly limited maybe with a few blueberries just for the pretty color... its probably more work than its worth, but im weird, im going to cut up all the strawberries and cantaloupe into small pieces be4 I freeze them, so when I put them in, they will come out mixed together rather thoroughly rather than the kinda striped effect I saw in some demonstrations...

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

You can also run mature coconut meat through a gear type juicer, you get a coconut creme that is unbelievably rich and wonderful. Stir that into your icecream, you might want to set it back into the freezer for a half hour or so or even just freeze it and have it on it's own. Oh la la, to die for!

I clearly need to get a gear type juicer - will research and start saving

Thanks for all the ideas

youtube has a ton of VS videos, but from what ive been able to tell through my research and advice from others, the omega 8004 is the best auger/gear style juicer you can get on a budget, and is apparently useful for many other things as well, Ive not used mine yet as it doesn't get here till tomorrow, so I cant give you any advice based on personal experience yet. but the 15 year warranty with a reputable company is a big plus...

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I think the 8004 is probably the second best at any cost/class...second only to the Greenstar that costs over $500 and is a dual auger juicer. That is my opinion from what I have seen in all the videos I have watched. The 8004 is definitely on my list of things I want to get when the cash flow is better.

common ground Nubster!lol, i agree with ya on that, although the Norwalk looks really awesome too, it will just probably always be outside of my price range, with my 8004 I wasnt planning on buying one for a long long time, but as soon as I decided I wanted one, bam, I was able to get it, out of nowhere... Maybe youl experience a similar windfall soon and be able to get one too, that would be cool.

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I didn't like the greenstar, I down graded to the omega in fact. It's not as strong but I don't use it much. If I was juiceing greens a lot I'd have to say greenstar is the way to go but for the occasional banana ice cream the omega is more than adequate. I make hummus in it too, the food processor can't deal with anything that thick unless a lot of water is added which makes it taste too bland for me.

Hummus in an omega?! thanks for the idea *writes it down on the list of dozens of other things he is already planning on doing as soon as his 8004 gets here...*lol

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, it homogenizes stuff by grinding it into paste. The food processor has to spin it round and round, hummus gets way too stiff to keep moving. That omega is great, you can do nut butter in it too. You have to add water or oil to make it creamy, or you can keep running it through again and again I hear.

yeah, I plan on trying peanutbutter as one of the first dozen or so things im gonna do with it,lol... cheaper than buying that processed peanut butter wannabe crap in the store...

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

For anyone who might like to know, freezing fresh fruit (or fresh vegetables) causes the cells to burst, which kills them. That's why freezing changes the texture.

It's probably OK to eat frozen fruits/vegetables compared to most everything else, but the food is no longer living or fresh, and that means there may be some undesireable consequences from eating it.

According to the following article, "Frozen foods have a similar effect on our organism as lightly steamed foods."

[www.rawfoodexplained.com]

Or anyway, such is the advice from the hard-core raw (like me). Of course, we each have our freedom of choice, which is probably far more valuable than a little thing like this!

Please forgive me if this gets posted twice. For some reason, it didn't post the first time. (?)

For anyone who might like to know, freezing fresh fruit (or fresh vegetables) causes the cells to burst, which kills them. That's why freezing changes the texture.

It's probably OK to eat frozen fruits/vegetables compared to most everything else, but the food is no longer living or fresh, and that means there may be some undesirable consequences from eating it.

According to the following article, "Frozen foods have a similar effect on our organism as lightly steamed foods."

[www.rawfoodexplained.com]

Or anyway, such is the advice from the hard-core raw (like me). Of course, we each have our freedom of choice, which is probably far more valuable than a little thing like this!

I'll take frozen banana ice over any dairy or fake dairy ice for my kids any day, no matter if it's optimum or not. Still GR8 IMHO. Heck, I'd rather give them frozen fruit ice over lightly steamed broccoli! It's all good.

By that reasoning juicing would do the same banana who... It breaks open the cells to squeeze their delicious juice and nutrients out... oh, and so does the blender... and so does chewing and digesting, although not as quickly as a blender or juicer will...

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

you can use it to do mask.

I have the opposite problem. Not enough ripe. Even though they've been hanging on the fence in the sun for 2 days. Unless monkeys are stealing the ripe ones when I'm not home. My diet tends to go to crap when I don't have my morning smoothie which usually consists of a pound of bananas and some other stuff.

The produce people in the stores are all telling me the same thing - they keep coming in green for some reason. I asked the manager at Trader Joe's if they had any over-ripe ones in the back I could have and he even said they are selling too fast for them to have that problem.

I've tried the regular grocery stores at night and in the morning figuring I'd find the over-ripe ones before they take them..but same thing there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2010 06:42PM by BackAgain.

I definitely agree with you Coco. With my own son, I gave him just about anything vegan. Didn't matter if it was raw or not, although I gave him lots of raw stuff too, especially fruits. (He always preferred salad without dressing. Good kid). Vegan mattered though, especially since dairy gave him asthma.

The negative info on frozen is intended strictly for the hard-core. IMO, not hard-core is just as OK as hard-core. And hard-core is just as OK as not hard-core, as long as the person is happy and getting all their nutrients!

To Curator, it's my understanding that the effects on the cells of frozen foods are not exactly the same as blending or juicing, since freezing allows more time for exposure to oxidation and the damaging effects from lysosomes. It's probably more like drinking a smoothie or a juice that's been sitting in the fridge for a few days (rather than drinking fresh-made). Oxidation is a chemical change, as evidenced in part by the change in texture, color, and taste.

Here's an experiment: Blend two bananas. Eat one blended banana now. Put the other blended banana in the refrigerator, cover it with plastic wrap, and eat it three days later. Which one tasted better?

And speaking of plastic wrap, fruits will die inside of any nonpermeable covering (including a ziploc bag), frozen or not, because they can't breathe. Not so with vegetables. (Sorry. As a fruit grower and former fruit seller [especially bananas], I'm somewhat fanatical about this). To keep the fruit alive, a plastic wrap has to have holes in it. Check the fresh fruit packaging at supermarkets ( for strawberries, apples, etc.). They all have holes. If you put your loose fruit in a regular plastic bag when you buy it, it's best to remove the fruit as soon as you get home. (Even better: bring your own reuseable bag or a recycled paper bag.)

Don't mean to rain on anyone's parade. Frozen bananas are dead, but they won't kill you. That's for sure!

On the other hand, a live banana, now there's a thing of true beauty.

(Lucky us, to occupy the same planet as a live banana. )

Freeze fruit, blanch and freeze veggies, that's the way it's done in industry because fruit freezes well enough even when raw, but with veggies the cells tend to burst which can excellerate spoilage and blanching neutralizes the agents of spoilage. I've heard of rawists doing a quick freeze and thaw of a veggie, like potato, as an experiment to see if it's another way to eat it, but am not sure how that turned out. I've tried banana ice cream but my juicer doesn't do that function well.

Where I live in the north at the moment there's a few berries around and there's stiff competition for the ripe ones from the birds so I'm picking unripe blueberries. Wish I had enough to freeze. An excess of fruit would be traditionally canned, frozen, fermented etc. What's the alternative? Composting? It's too valuable for that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2010 10:35AM by loeve.