do not eat the brown / overripe / overrippened / bruised areas

1. Do not eat the brown areas.
2. Do not eat the overripe areas.
3. Do not eat the overrippened areas.
3. Do not eat the bruised areas.

Which is most natural?

None is natural with "areas". That's not a natural usage when talking about a banana. I'd say "Don't eat the brown bits". (Mind you, I would eat the whole thing. I'm not sure why you would tell someone not to.)

Forget overrippened, or even overripened.

Just replace "areas" with "bits" or "part", or something like that.

Again, it's fine to eat the soft, overripe brown bits. The only reason not to is if you find them distasteful.

In fact, squishy brown bananas are ideal for making banana bread and cake.

Rover_KE said:

The only reason not to is if you find them distasteful.

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I do. ;-)

We have so many types here that I can be picky. Mushy, over-ripe bananas are foul. ;-)

I seem to remember reading that of the many banana varieties, only one is exported in their millions to countries which can't grow them.

Someone told me in Cambodia that they have three dozen varieties there, which sounds about right. Lots probably wouldn't work in supermarkets in places like the UK as they're small and ugly, but taste great.

I would refer to them as 'brown spots'.

I once had a Brazilian student comment that one of the things she missed the most about home was bananas. When I pointed out that bananas are widely available here in the US, she said we didn't have "real" bananas, and all the ones we had "didn't have any flavor".

I guess I'm not nuanced enough in bananas, but I suppose for her it was like me eating those cardboard store tomatoes instead of my homegrown heirloom varieties fresh off the vine.

Skrej said:

I would refer to them as 'brown spots'.

I once had a Brazilian student comment that one of the things she missed the most about home was bananas. When I pointed out that bananas are widely available here in the US, she said we didn't have "real" bananas, and all the ones we had "didn't have any flavor".

I guess I'm not nuanced enough in bananas, but I suppose for her it was like me eating those cardboard store tomatoes instead of my homegrown heirloom varieties fresh off the vine.

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Nearly all bananas available in places they don't grow are the Cavendish variety. They're all clones of the same plant, which was selected for disease resistance, regular ripening behavior, and ruggedness for shipping. Cavendish bananas are not renowned for flavor among people who have a choice of variety. A blight is wiping out Cavendish plantations around the world, so another variety is likely to emerge to replace the Cavendish, which itself replaced a (reputedly tastier) earlier, blight-stricken variety.

I haven't read this book but I remember thinking I ought to when it was released in '08. I heard a couple of interviews of its author and thought it sounded extremely interesting.