Are you tired of throwing away moldy fruit that you paid good money for? Learn how to keep fruit fresh longer with these tips from Amy Cross, author of the Zero Waste Produce Guide. Keep your fruit fresh for weeks (even a month) with these simple steps.
We all want to know how to save money on groceries, including ways to beat inflation at the grocery store, cooking from-scratch meals while eating well on a budget.
While much of this starts with building up a well-stocked pantry and eating seasonally on the homestead, there are more ways to save on fresh produce, and that’s what we’re discussing in this Pantry Chat podcast interview with Amy Cross.
About Amy Cross
Amy is a wife, mom, author, speaker, content creator, and Founder of The Cross Legacy.
Eating fresh produce was always important to Amy and her family, but during a season of life when she struggled with pain and lack of energy from a health condition, grocery shopping was not easy. She knew the importance of eating healthy and ‘eating the rainbow’ in terms of fresh produce, so she used days when she was feeling well to prepare for the harder days ahead.
Amy has shared her tips on how to wash and store produce to last up to a month on her YouTube channel and has now published a book called the Zero Waste Produce Guide. It’s a hardcover book with directions for washing and storing 75 fruits, vegetables, and herbs. It also has recipe inspiration, organizational tips, and an easy-to-use quick reference guide.
Why You’ll Love These Tips
We’ve all been there, frustrated at the rising cost of groceries and wanting to stretch our budget as far as we can. That’s why when our produce goes bad mere days after bringing it home, it can be so frustrating.
- Washing Hack: Learn the secret washing hack that Amy learned growing up on a farm that kills food-spoiling bacteria.
- Save Money: Start saving money (or rather, spending less money) on groceries because you’re consuming everything that you buy, instead of throwing away 40-60% of it due to spoilage.
- Fresher Produce: No more finding creative ways to use up berries that are just about to go bad. Enjoy fresher produce longer so you can eat it in your favorite recipes.
- Extended Shelf Life: Produce like berries has a shelf life of about two weeks. Depending on where they were picked, packaged and shipped from, they may be near the end of their shelf life the day you buy them from the grocery store. These tips can help extend that shelf life, helping to avoid waste.
Store-Bought vs. Home-Grown
Whether you’re buying produce from the grocery store or growing it yourself, these methods will work to prolong the shelf life of your food.
It is important to understand when and how to harvest your crops for the best results. While we won’t cover everything, here are a few tips when harvesting:
- Time of Day: For most produce, it’s ideal to harvest in the early morning cool of the day rather than in the heat of the day (save for tomatoes, which are ideally harvested in the heat of the day for a more condensed sugar content).
- Right Away!: Dealing with produce right away is your very best bet for prolonging the shelf life. Don’t be tempted to set it on the counter and forget about it for a couple of hours. Make it a habit to jump right into the washing process as soon as it’s harvested or brought home from the store.
The Washing Process
Learning how to wash produce properly is the key to making it last longer. Soaking produce in water and a 5% vinegar solution for a specific amount of time helps to kill off mold spores, Listeria, E. coli and any other harmful pathogens on the produce.
Not only does this protect us from getting sick (greens are the most recalled produce on the market, even those that have been “triply washed”), but it also protects the produce from bacteria that cause spoilage, extending its shelf life.
While the washing process is similar for most produce, here are the basics, based on produce type:
- Wash: Wash your produce in a solution of 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar and 10 cups of water. Swish it around a few times to loosen any debris.
- Soak: Set a timer and allow the produce to soak for 2 minutes. It’s important to set a timer as too little may not kill all the bad stuff, while too long can start breaking down the produce.
- Rinse: Rinse the produce well.
At this point, you’ll move on to the drying and storing steps (more on this below).
The Drying Process
Once your produce has been properly washed, it’s important that it gets completely dried before going into airtight storage.
If you have a salad spinner, you can speed this process up, but Amy says she just lays her produce out on kitchen towels for a few hours, goes about her daily business, then comes back later to package them up.
The Storing Process
Amy has tested not just her produce but also dairy products like Greek yogurt, sour cream and cottage cheese. She says that when stored in glass vs. plastic, the products stored in glass last much longer!
While she tries getting away from as much plastic as possible, she did share that the one caveat to this rule is berries, as they like being stored in glass containers with a plastic lid.
When it comes to storing greens, specifically lettuce, Amy’s tip is to store the lettuce lying flat (so it looks like a roof, not a boat). This allows any residual water (or water the lettuce releases) to roll down onto the paper towel, rather than pooling in the leaf.
More Storage Tips
Over the years of trial and error (and then research to confirm what her findings were showing), Amy has come up with some “produce buddies” that do well when stored together and “produce frienemies” which seem like they should be stored together, but actually cause faster ripening!
- Avocados and Lemons: One such produce pairing is avocados and lemons. While lemons will last more than a month in the refrigerator, avocados won’t. However, when stored together (in the same produce drawer), the lemons will help keep the avocados from over-ripening too quickly.
- Bananas, Apples & Oranges: While these may look nice when placed together in a fruit bowl, you’re actually causing them to ripen more quickly. Store these items away from one another and they’ll last much longer.
- Potatoes & Onions: In the homesteading community, we generally know these two items shouldn’t be stored near each other. However, this may be new information to you! Don’t store your potatoes and onions together in the same cupboard.
- Stems: When handling fruit that has a stem, try to keep the stem intact. Fruit that has the stem removed (such as cherries or grapes) will spoil more quickly. So eat those pieces first, knowing they won’t last as long.
- Bruising: Be gentle while washing produce as it’s easy to bruise, and bruised produce doesn’t last as long.
- Organic: While it does cost more money to buy organic produce, Amy recommends always buying organic bananas and organic avocados. Both of these non-organic fruits are sprayed with ethylene (which is a ripening hormone), while they’re organic counterparts aren’t. Simply buying the organic options will slow down the ripening, saving you from spoiled fruit.
- Storage Lids: While Amy stores most everything in a glass container (or silicone bag), she doesn’t always use the same lid! Amy recommends using a plastic lid for berries and fruit because it’s slightly breathable, allowing the condensation to escape. She recommends an airtight two-piece canning lid for items like cut avocados or diced onions.
- Brassicas: Produce such as cabbage and broccoli is best washed in a saltwater solution, rather than vinegar. You can watch Amy’s process of washing and storing cabbage here.
- Herbs & Stemmed Veggies: With herbs that have a softer stem (cilantro, basil, mint, etc.), you want to wash them in either well water or filtered water, along with the vinegar, as chlorinated city water will kill them. Once they’ve been washed, trim the stems and store them in a glass of water in the refrigerator (like flowers in a vase). About every week (or as needed), trim the stems again and replace the water. This method works well with asparagus, artichokes and broccoli, too.
Where to Find Amy
If you’d like to grab a copy of Amy’s Zero Waste Produce Guide, visit her website, The Cross Legacy and use coupon code “Homestead15” at checkout for 15% off. Then, be sure to follow The Cross Legacy on Instagram and YouTube.
