Five Tips For Making Your Produce Last Longer

Five simple tips to help keep your vegetables and fruits fresh longer so you can avoid spoilage & waste, which will, in turn, save you money!

After the popularity of my Five Things You Should Never Throw Away & How to Reuse Them post, I knew I had to write another informative article on avoiding waste. 

It really sucks when you spend hard-earned cash on fresh foods only to have them spoil prematurely. If spoilage or waste is happening to you a bit too frequently, this post should help.

Also be sure to read the tips from my meal planning and kitchen hacks posts, as they both contain info to help you prevent food waste.

And at the very least, if your food spoils (fast or slow), then you know it's real food and not frankenfood like McDonald's french fries! Seriously...why do they never go bad?!?!

Five Tips For Making Your Produce Last Longer

1. Buy at the Right Time

If you're one of those people that grocery shops only once or twice a month, it's important to meal plan (even if it's just a rough outline) so you know what food you have on hand (this helps prevent spoilage). The same applies if you shop weekly, too.

Example: If you buy a handful of avocados but aren't going to make guacamole, salsa, or tacos until six days later, don't reach for the super-ripe avocados.

Instead, look for the fruit that is a few days away from peak ripeness. How do you tell when an avocado is perfectly ripe? See the little nob at the top where the avocado used to be attached to a stem? Press down on it lightly. If it sinks down easily, it's ripe. If it won't move, it's not ripe. If it presses down with hardly any pressure, it may be slightly overripe.

Simply put: For fruits & veggies you're not going to use immediately, be sure it's not super ripe. If it is, make a point of using within the next 1-2 days.

It's also important to learn how long certain fruits and vegetables last before spoiling. Some fresh foods are only good for a few days. Plan your meals accordingly.

It's always smart to scan the fridge before mealtimes for produce that's ripening faster. Always use that first or freeze for later. Wasted food is wasted money.

2. Proper Storage

Almost all fruits and vegetables emit something called ethylene gas, which is a natural, odorless gas that triggers the ripening and aging process. Some fruits and veggies give off a lot of ethylene gas, while others do not.

The ones that don't give off gas are particularly sensitive to ethylene gas because when a fruit or vegetable comes in contact with the gas it immediately begins to produce it, which speeds up the ripening process. This can be a friend or foe.

If you have a bag full of under-ripe fruit (let's use peaches as an example) and don't want to wait a week for it to ripen on its own, you can either stick the peaches in a closed brown paper bag, which concentrates the ethylene gas, or you can place them next to an already ripened fruit (like bananas or avocados) that emit high levels of ethylene gas. Both techniques will yield fresh fruit quicker.

On the flip side, if you're negligent about where you store your produce and position a ripe fruit or vegetable next to another ripe piece of produce that's emitting a ton of the ethylene gas and forget about it for a day or two, your fruit will likely spoil.

To avoid this, you should strategically separate the high gas yielding produce from the others and keep certain foods in the fridge to slow the ripening process.

Here's a list of fruits and veggies for reference (source).

Fruits & Veggies that Emit High Levels of Ethylene Gas:

• Apples
• Apricots
• Avocados
• Bananas
• Cantaloupe
• Figs
• Honeydew Melon
• Kiwi Fruit
• Nectarines
• Papayas
• Peaches
• Pears
• Plums
• Tomatoes

Fruits & Veggies that are Sensitive to Ethylene Gas:

• Asparagus
• Broccoli
• Brussel Sprouts
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• Grapefruit
• Green Beans
• Lemons
• Leafy Greens
• Limes
• Peas
• Peppers
• Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes
• Summer Squashes
• Watermelon

3. Prevent Excess Moisture

One of the biggest enemies to produce, aside from ethylene gas, is moisture. This mostly impacts foods stored in the fridge, since the stuff on countertops gets plenty of air.

With that said, it's important not to just chuck all your fruits and veggies into the icebox straight from the grocery store or farmers market. For some foods, like apples, that's okay. As long as one of the apples isn't super ripe already, they'll be fine.

But for leafy produce like lettuce or herbs, it helps to use paper towels (or linen cloths) to absorb excess moisture that develops.

If you like to wash your produce before storing it in the fridge, make sure it's thoroughly dry beforehand! If you pre-chop your lettuce for the week, a salad spinner or colander might come in handy to wick away all the water.

A good technique is to wrap whatever you're storing in paper towels or linen cloths so that it doesn't come in direct contact with the bag or container it's in. Usually, extra condensation builds up on the sides or top. A paper towel or cloth will create a barrier that absorbs the water droplets.

This works especially well if you buy large containers of pre-washed and cut organic lettuce for salads and sandwiches. Simply lay a cloth down across the top (you might need to wipe down the sides occasionally) and exchange it for a dry one every few days.

4. Re-purpose & Recycle 

If you have produce that's less than picture perfect...don't trash it! Maybe it's wilted, flaccid or spotty. No matter. As long as it isn't rotten or moldy, there are many ways to re-purpose veggies and fruit:

• Chop up vegetables and add them to stir-fry, pasta, casseroles, soups, or sauces.
• Use the whole vegetables or scraps to make a homemade broth that you can freeze for later to add to dishes for extra flavor.
• Peel, chop and freeze blemished fruits to use in smoothies, sauces, and jams.
• Mix the fruit into your favorite baked goods like cookies, muffins, quick bread, scones, cobblers or oatmeal bars for added sweetness.

Believe it or not, you can actually regrow certain vegetables like celery and green onions from their root. Cut off what you need to eat and then stick the base in a shallow glass or bowl of water near a well-lit window and watch it grow!

In as little as a week the green onions will spurt up, but I've heard that celery takes months to grow. This is a great way to get double use out of your store-bought produce!

5. If In Doubt, Freeze For Later or Compost It

If you see something start to ripen quickly and don't have time to use it, take a few minutes to wash, dry and chop it for the freezer. 

In most cases, it's best practice to freeze the pieces (if it's not liquid) in one flat layer (not touching) on a cookie sheet for an hour or so, then store them as you would normally. This prevents foods from sticking together. Likewise, if you purchased too much of a particular produce item, freeze it to use later in other recipes.

Most fruits & vegetables can be frozen raw, but some produce like tomatoes and leafy greens need to be cooked so they can withstand the freezer and taste decent once thawed.

When food products are foregone (rotten or moldy), most people are quick to trash them. Instead, you could take the opportunity to compost the decaying produce and, in turn, use that to fertilize plants in your container or backyard garden.

This will make your plants happy and healthy, which will yield more food for you and that's basically like free money!

For the vast majority of these foods, I recommend an array of composting alternatives (bags, buckets, bins, tumblers, etc.)

I'm certainly no expert, so read here and here for more information on how to begin composting.

I'd like to hear from you! 

Are there any good tips on storing or prepping fruits & veggies that I missed?

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Keep Reading! More Posts From The Rising Spoon:

• Ten Tips For Meal Planning with Real Food
• Ten Tips For Saving Money on Groceries and Eating Healthier
• 40+ Dehydrator Recipes For Preserving Food, Saving Money & Eating Healthier
• Why You Should Read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
• 30 Ways to Relax & Keep Calm When You're Feeling Stressed or Anxious

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