7 Ways to Make Produce Last Longer

Note: Elephants May Actually Harm Your Produce

Do you want to make your produce last longer?

Becoming a raw foodist requires a lot more planning and awareness of your food.

By eating a diet consisting mostly of fresh produce, you need to know, at a minimum:

• Ripening times
• How long something lasts in a fridge or freezer
• If something can be stored in a fridge or freezer
• What produce to put together and what to avoid mixing
• What can stay out at room temperature and for how long
• What season is the produce the best to eat?
• What is good to eat organic and what can you eat conventional and let is slide?

And the list goes on and on and on...


Eating out of Boxes and Cans May be Easier in the Short Term, but...

JS came from a background of eating mostly boxed, frozen, pre-made, canned, or restaurant food. He ate very little produce and what he did eat, was so full of pesticides that he could never remember tasting something fresh that didn't taste terrible.

So now that you are a raw foodist, and you need to "take care of your produce", what are some ways to make it last longer?


Just 'Cause It's Sitting There, Doesn't Mean It's Not Active

Your produce is active. It is alive, and you can't just throw it in the fridge and forget about it until you are hungry.

We've found, through much trial and error, the following helpful tips for making your produce last just that much longer.


Seven Easy Ways to Make Produce Last Longer

1. Rotate it. This is especially helpful for mangoes, which can easily bruise way before their prime if left on one side for too long. Learn to rotate your fruit on a regular basis.
   
   
2. Store it the right way. Learn the best ways to store each fruit and veggie. For example, fruit can generally either go in the fridge or outside to ripen quicker. Greens should never be set out. Raw nuts and seeds need to be cooled or frozen, or else they will go bad!
   
   
3. Buy ripe and unripe. If you buy ripe and unripe produce at the store, you can eat now while letting your unripe produce blossom to perfection later. Also, you'll want to learn how long it takes something to ripen. Everything ripens at different rates. We usually buy avocados that need one or two days of ripening on the kitchen counter.
   
   
4. Buy only what you need. We, as Americans, are not used to the "going to the market" concept. In much of Europe, people go to the market many times per week and buy only what they are going to use. As Americans (and others) start eating more and more boxed food, we lose touch with our foods' natural cycles. We go to one grocery store and buy produce that lasts one or two days, and then make one or two trips to our local food co-ops.
   
   
5. Take bagged fruit out when you get home. It's tempting to buy a big bag of bulk apples, only to open them up a week later and find four or five bad ones. There's always a bad one or two in a bag that can ruin your whole set. Also, it's a good idea to get your fruit out and "breathing" as quickly as possible. That is why many raw foodists have a fruit basket on their dining room table. It's not just for decoration, it helps the fruit ripen!
   
   
6. Install rolling racks in your fridge. Produce can quickly hide in a raw foodists' fridge. The nature of eating this way brings a constant "fridge full of food", where greens can get smashed in the back or cucumbers can go unnoticed for too long. Rolling racks will help you pull out your racks to see what's in the back. Boy, do we need some of these.
   
   
7. Don't place ripe produce next to unripe produce. Unless, of course, you want it to ripen much quicker!

If all else fails, go ahead and declare Fridge Bankruptcy, you can always start over again.

It pays (in time and money) to keep on top of your produce.

Following these seven simple tips will get you started on your journey to living in harmony with your foods' natural cycle of life and death.

Not only will you save your trash can or compost pile from constant waste, but you will eat your produce at its nutritional peak.

That's the whole goal of this raw food lifestyle anyway, isn't it?

~ Raw Food, Right Now!

Photo credit: Susanica