Explore our helpful tips on how you can save on your food bill and reduce food waste.
How to Keep Your Fruits and Vegetables Fresh For Longer
Save money and waste with our handy tips on how to store your fruits and vegetables correctly. By prolonging the life of your produce, it will not only taste better but save you money in the long run.
It's a painful experience throwing food in the bin - especially knowing the negative effect it will have on the planet and your wallet. The good news is there are steps we as consumers can take to store our fresh food properly, helping fast-rotting fruits like raspberries stay fresh for longer.
Simple tricks like chopping and storing carrots in glass jars filled with water and treating your soft herbs like flowers will keep them crisp and fresh. Read more of our tips below.
Keeping vegetables like carrots, celery, asparagus and radishes in an air-tight glass jar, filled with water is an easy solution to keeping them as fresh as possible. Not to mention they'll taste better! Nobody likes to bite into a spongy carrot.
For this tip, you'll need either a Wide Mouth Glass Jar, a Clip Top Jar and water. Simply wash your vegetables and cut them if need be into your desired shape. Pop them into the jar, fill it up with water and secure the lid. This air-tight feature of our jars prevents air and bacteria from getting in and starting the decomposition process.
This tip works a treat if you like to prep your vegetables for snacks or meal prep at the beginning of the week. Change out the water daily to keep them fresh. Your vegetables will last 2 weeks - 1 month depending on the vegetable.
Give your berries a vinegar bath
Berries are notorious for rotting before their time. They are delicious but fragile fruits that need a bit of thought towards how to store them properly. Store them incorrectly, and you could end up with a mushy, moldy berry graveyard in your fridge 3 days after buying them.
We've found the best way to keep your berries from being thrown in the bin is to give them a vinegar bath. The diluted vinegar will eliminate any bacteria on your berries.
The vinegar solution should be a 1:3 ratio of vinegar to water in either a bowl or your clean sink. Empty your berries out of their packaging into the solution and let them sit for 15 minutes. Take them out, give them a rinse with water and dry them as much as possible. A salad spinner lined with paper towels is a great method for drying berries.
You don't want to trap any excess moisture in with the berries, so we recommend leaving the lid on the paper towel-lined container slightly open. Our glass Fresh Storage Containers are commonly used for storing fruits.
Treat soft herbs like flowers
Herbs tend to fall into two categories - soft or hard. If the leaves are tender and green like basil, parsley, coriander and mint, they're classed as soft herbs. Hard herbs with woody stems like rosemary, thyme and sage need to be stored differently. Wash your herbs to remove any debris and pat dry as much as possible before trying the following tips.
Soft herbs left in their packaging and thrown into the fridge will turn into green slime within a matter of days. To keep this from happening, treat them like flowers.
We recommend putting them into a small glass jar with water filled a third of the way up. This way their leaves are left dry but they're still getting moisture from their stems.
Our Preserve Jars or smaller Wide Mouth Jars can be used for this tip.
Wrap hard herbs up in a damp paper towel
Hard herbs love to be wrapped up in a cold, damp paper towel. They won't dry out this way. These herbs tend to be a little more resilient and typically last longer than soft herbs.
It starts at the store. If you want your fruit and vegetables to last longer at home, do your best to pick the best options at the store or market. ...
Dehydrating. Dehydrating food with the use of either a dehydrator or freeze dryer is one of the simplest and most efficient forms of home food preservation. Dehydrated food extends the shelf life while transforming the flavour and texture.
In the refrigerator, keep humidity vents open for fruit and closed for vegetables. The humidity vents in the refrigerator are designed to control the humidity level inside it. Fruit needs a humid environment to stay fresh, while vegetables do not.
Most refrigerated produce stays fresh longer when sealed, whether in zip-top plastic bags, reusable silicone pouches, or containers with tight-fitting lids. These containers hold in moisture, preventing produce from dehydrating, and they help protect sensitive produce from the effects of ethylene gas.
A shelf life extender is a type of ingredient used in food processing to prolong the freshness and quality of food products. This means your food stays fresher, tastier, and maintains its texture for longer.
Produce is chilled as soon as possible after harvest, so that it deteriorates much more slowly. Controlled-atmosphere storage and packaging (with lower levels of oxygen and higher levels of carbon dioxide than normal air) can further slow down deterioration.
Antioxidants are important and necessary food additives. These help in food preservation by retarding the action of oxygen on food. They act through several chemical mechanisms. The two most familiar antioxidants are butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA).
To do this, line a plate, baking sheet or shallow glass bowl with a couple paper towels or a clean kitchen towel. Place your unwashed strawberries on top in a single layer, then cover with a lid or plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use, ideally within seven days.
Refrigerate fresh berries right after grocery shopping or a visit to the blueberry patch. You can store them in the plastic clamshell they come in, or in a large, un-covered bowl or container. Don't store fresh blueberries in an airtight container as this can trap moisture and speed up mold and rot.
Exposure to high temperatures increases the rate at which fruits and vegetables ripen. Avoid keeping your fresh produce near stoves, gas cooker tops, toasters and other appliances that emit heat.
Among the oldest methods of preservation are drying, refrigeration, and fermentation. Modern methods include canning, pasteurization, freezing, irradiation, and the addition of chemicals.
Fruits that should not be refrigerated include bananas, apples, melons, and berries. Keep in mind that many fruits will ripen more quickly when left at room temperature but will stay fresh longer if refrigerated once ripe.
Leafy greens wilt very quickly. To keep them fresh, store them in bags filled with a little air and seal them tightly. Citrus fruits like lemons, oranges, tangerines, and limes, last longer than your other fruits. Store them in perforated plastic bags in a cool dark place to make them last even longer.
Introduction: My name is Annamae Dooley, I am a witty, quaint, lovely, clever, rich, sparkling, powerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
