India, Feb. 27 -- Bright yellow bananas may look picture-perfect on store shelves, but not all of them have ripened naturally. In a race to speed up sales and reduce losses, some vendors are reportedly forcing bananas to ripen using chemical agents, turning prematurely harvested fruit yellow before it has properly matured from within. The result? Bananas that appear ready to eat but may be underdeveloped - and in some cases, exposed to potentially harmful substances. Amid growing concerns around such practices, knowing how to tell naturally ripened bananas apart from chemically treated ones has become more important than ever.

Dr Manan Vora, a Mumbai-based orthopaedic surgeon, health educator, and co-founder of NutriByte Wellness, is bre...