Keeping fruits and veg fresh longer

[Moxie]

This isn’t exactly diet related. Although it seemed like the best place to post this information. I was looking for ways to keep my fruits and veg fresh for longer periods of time, since I will be buying more to accommodate Penelope’s needs and our own. I ran up on an article that had a lot of neat ideas that I never would have thought of! Just thought I would share the link. http://inhabitat.com/6-ways-to-keep…er-longer/ 

If you have any tricks that you use that aren’t mentioned here, please share!  A healthy bun is a happy bun!

[LittlePuffyTail]

The link didn’t work for me. it says the page moved.

What I usually do with veg like carrot tops, parsley and dandelion is remove the elastic/twist ties, wet a couple of paper towels and wrap it around the veggies and then put it in a plastic bag with the top twisted closed, stored in the fridge. The moisture keeps them from wilting longer.

[Dobby]

I had a cheap set of bathroom hand towels from Target sitting in a box doing no good so I started using those to wrap my veggies. They seem to work well, as they are terry cloth and stay a little damp in the fridge. I just throw them in the wash whenever I’m running a load so that I always have some clean ones on hand after trips to the grocery store.

[Moxie]

Well that is bizarre, I couldn’t even find it when I typed it into the websites search feature. But if I type ways to keep your fruits and vegetables fresh longer into google search it pops right up as the first thing?!  

Anyway the suggestions that they gave were:

(1) Give your berries a hot bath, by immersing and swishing the berries in their plastic basket in a pot of hot water. Roughly 125 degrees for 30 seconds. Then spreading them out on a towel to allow them to breathe while stored.  The article says that this works best for strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. (This stops the onset of mold)

(2) Store tomatoes outside of the refrigerator in a bowl lined with a paper towel and the stems facing upward. Keep them away from heat sources and direct sunlight, also move them around in the bowl periodically to keep them from bruising. This should allow them to keep for at least a week. .

(3) Wrap your unwashed leafy greens in paper towels and then place them back into the bag to soak up excess moisture. (which you have already mentioned  )

(4) Refresh lettuce and herbs with an ice bath if they are looking a bit wilted. Just shake them around a bit in the ice water, a minute or two should do.

(5) Freeze extra fruits and vegetables if you have purchased too much. Just make sure that you blanch them in hot water first to neutralize any bacteria that might be present. They recommend freezing  items such as bell peppers, green beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, celery, cucumbers, onions, eggplant, mushrooms, strawberries, blueberries or bananas.

(6) Refrigerate ripened bananas. Yes the skin will turn black within a couple of hours from the cool temperatures, but the fruit within doesn’t continue to ripen as quickly.

* The cold temperature of a fridge encourages an enzyme found in bananas (polyphenyl oxidase) to polymerise phenols in the banana skin into polyphenols, which in turn blackens the banana skins. News to me !

This is all my paraphrasing of course, but to avoid any unintentional theft of intellectual property or copyright laws (lol) It is from an article by Inhabit and the author is unnamed.

 Sorry guys, next time I will check that the link is working properly before posting!

[Elrohwen]

I just try to buy veggies that keep in the fridge longer, like romaine. If I buy something that I know will go bad faster, I feed that at the beginning of the week.

I don’t have issues keeping romaine and parsley in the fridge for a bit over a week and I don’t do anything special – just leave them in the plastic bags from the store (which is generally not recommended)

[Moxie]

I bought a large bunch of romaine and Penelope won’t touch it. Lil weirdo!
On a completely unrelated side note, I think my bunny is way healthier than I am. She just turned down banana for Kale and here I am having apple pie for breakfast, lol don’t judge it’s been a hard morning.

[LittlePuffyTail]

My bunnies eat way healthier than I do and I’m vegetarian too so I have no excuses!

[Kayota]

I am having issues with this too and I just started buying a small amount at a time. I was just doing one head of lettuce at a time but with two bunnies it goes faster so I can keep more of a variety.

[Author]

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