7 Great Tips for Keeping Farmers’ Market Foods Fresh
lifesum2 min
I love a good farmers’ market. The fresh bread and cheese, the mimosas, the handpicked, non-factory made veggies, and the organic pasture-raised eggs – what’s not to like?
Here’s the thing though: most of us don’t have a clue about how to take care of the produce we buy at the farmers’ market. What’s the best way to keep it all fresh?
We’ve got a few tips for you:
1. Store outside the fridge
Potatoes, onions, and tomatoes. You want these cool, not cold, as the cold ruins their flavor. Store them someplace cool and dark.
2. Keep at eye-level
Unripe fruit and veg, like pears, plums, bananas, and mangoes can be kept on the counter in a fruit bowl; it’s only once they’re ripe that they need to be stored in the fridge. Except from bananas, keep them in room temperature. If the bananas are too ripe: peel them, freeze them and mix them. Voila! Icecream!
3. Don’t cut your fruit and veg right away
While it can be more convenient, unless you’re going to be using things pretty quickly, cut fruit and veg tend to spoil faster.
4. Brown-bag it
Trapped moisture makes mushrooms go bad. Keep them in brown paper bags in cool, dry places.
5. Store in a vase of water
Leafy herbs and greens. Ever wondered why they die so quickly? They need water – who knew? Placing your herbs and greens in water, covering the containers they’re in with a plastic lid and keeping them in the fridge will help them last a heck of a lot longer.
6. Watch out for
Ethylene gas. It’s a gas produced by some fruits and veggies like bananas, avocados and kiwis as they ripen, and can prematurely ripen other sensitive foods around. There are two options: separating ethylene producing fruit and veg from non-ethylene producing fruit and veg, or simply buying an ethylene has absorbed for your fridge or fruit basket, which will stop your other fruit and veg getting affected.
7. Eggs
There’s always a debate about whether or not they need to be refrigerated. Ask the farmer you’re buying the eggs from if they’ve ever been refrigerated and washed; if they have, they need to be kept in the fridge, but if they haven’t, you can keep them out of the fridge; just make sure to rinse them before using them. Also, refrigerated eggs do last longer, so if you’re not eating them quickly, then you might as well store them in the fridge.
Have you tried any of these tips? What do you do to make your fresh produce last longer?
Be a healthier you!
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