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Mastering Produce Storage: Tips to Reduce Food Waste · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Hello, and welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  I am your host, Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support
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  with Family and Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky.
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  We are housed in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.
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  Chances are, if your household is like most, you have some fruit in a bowl sitting
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  on your kitchen table or some vegetables ready to be eaten sitting in your fridge.
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  But some fruits and vegetables have very specific storage recommendations.
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  Here to share that guidance with us today is LaToya Drake, Extension Specialist
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  for Food Access with the Kentucky Nutrition Education Program. Welcome, LaToya.
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  Hey, Mindy. What are some of the best practices and general tips for storing
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  our fruits and vegetables?
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  Yeah, so we want to make sure that we're storing our fruits and vegetables properly
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  because over 40% of food goes to waste, Mindy. So we want to make sure,
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  and I know that I help with doing this because I travel so much.
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  I feel like that throw away more food than I'd like to.
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  So part of reviewing this is for myself so I can get back in the habit of making
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  sure I'm storing things properly and using them up as I should.
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  Basically, we want to refrigerate all produce that is pre-cut or peeled.
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  And we want to keep fruits and vegetables in separate drawers in our refrigerator.
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  We also want to make sure we're using the oldest produce first.
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  And that applies to whatever kind of produce we're using, fresh,
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  frozen, canned, dried. We want to use whatever we bring into our house.
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  We want to use that up, like last in, first out.
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  Last in, first out. We want to make sure that we're doing that.
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  And then with our fresh fruit and vegetables, we want to store those perishable
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  fruits and vegetables like berries, lettuce, and mushrooms in a clean refrigerator.
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  Between 34 degrees and 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
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  So out of the danger zone, we want to store it cold.
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  The reason that we want to keep fruits and vegetables separate is because of
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  that ethylene gas, right? Is that what it's called? Ethylene gas.
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  So many fruits produce gas and they give off that gas.
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  And when they are beside other produce like vegetables, they're going to make
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  things ripen quicker. That gas is going to do that.
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  If you want something to ripen quickly, you can put it in a brown bag with a
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  fruit and it'll help it ripen it up.
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  But to avoid that, we want to keep our fruits and vegetables separate so we're
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  not ripening anything too fast.
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  Also, some things are going to be stored on the countertop until they're ripe.
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  If you want to slow something from ripening, you could put it in the refrigerator
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  to slow it down a little bit.
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  So you make it think that it is in the cool temperatures outside,
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  really just in the refrigerator.
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  When we want to clean produce, how do we clean it properly?
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  We don't want to clean produce until right before we're going to use it.
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  We hear that a lot. And I know I was just in my grandma's house and I always
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  talk about her and stuff because we're learning together.
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  And she was cleaning her cucumbers before she put them in her refrigerator.
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  But she's going to eat those up pretty quickly.
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  She loves fresh cucumbers. So she cleaned it because she's going to cut it up
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  and eat on it throughout the week.
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  And I like to do that with my strawberries. If I don't clean those pretty quickly
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  on coming home and cut those out, I'll cut them up and put a little sugar on
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  them to keep them longer.
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  They're going to go bad if you don't do that because strawberries go bad two to three days.
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  But the best practice is to clean things right before you use it.
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  Because that water, if you clean things prior to that, it's going to make it go bad quicker.
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  So you want to clean your produce and rinse them before you use it.
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  You want to rinse produce or you want to use a vegetable brush.
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  I keep one beside my sink and I use that just for my vegetables to scrub the
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  outsides of that to rinse this good.
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  Some things like berries, you could submerse those in clean water and lift those
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  out of the water to clean them.
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  If you want to add a bit of vinegar, that's okay. But you never want to clean
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  with detergents or soaps because that's going to seep into the pores of your
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  fruit or your produce and can change the flavor.
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  And you don't want any soapy squash or soapy cucumbers unless you do,
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  unless that's your thing, but that's not my thing. So you don't want to clean those with soap.
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  We've recently seen...
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  Vegetable cleaner or that sort
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  of thing on the market and really that's just a waste of money we don't
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  want to spend money on a vegetable
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  cleaner just water water is is fine right water is fine if you want to do a
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  little vinegar sometimes I'll do that with like strawberries or berries or things
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  because they say it makes them last a little longer so sometimes I do science
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  and family consumer sciences in my kitchen yes and I test things out I don't
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  mind cleaning it with a little vinegar,
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  but we don't want to use any kind of commercial soap or cleaners if we don't want to do that.
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  So some produce, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show,
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  is okay to ripen on the counter, and then we want to move it to the fridge after, correct?
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  What produce is okay to ripen on the counter? So some that we want to ripen
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  on the counter, and then some we can store completely on the counter,
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  but those that ripen on the counter first and then refrigerate them.
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  That's going to help prevent moisture loss. And we might want to store those
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  in a paper bag or partially open plastic bag on the counter away from sunlight.
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  These kinds of things include our pears, our peaches, our plums, our melons.
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  Once we cut into those melons, we want to put them into the refrigerator though.
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  I know we cut a big old watermelon here and half of it,
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  I had to make space to make sure the half that we didn't cut in the
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  refrigerator because the husband I live with
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  he was going to leave it on the counter I'm like no sir we cannot do this unless
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  you want to sicken yourself so we want
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  to use them after they're ripened or we cut into them within
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  one to three days after we put if once they ripen or once we cut into them they
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  go in the refrigerator and they're going to last about one to three days and
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  what about the produce that we should immediately refrigerate so some things
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  we want to make sure that we're immediately putting into the refrigerator,
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  especially those things that are cut.
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  We want to make sure that we're storing them in our crisper drawers or in the proper places.
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  And those include berries and cherries, especially those leafy greens, right?
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  Our herbs are going in the refrigerator.
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  Unless you, some herbs are different and that's something that you want to reach
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  out to your extension office to find the best way to store your herbs.
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  Because some of those go in the refrigerator and some of those you might not want to.
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  Bell peppers definitely go in the refrigerator. Asparagus goes in the refrigerator.
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  More on the cob goes in the refrigerator. Celery, zucchini, cucumber,
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  mushrooms, and radishes.
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  All those are definitely going to go in your refrigerator and they're going
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  to be good one to three days, sometimes longer.
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  And you want to use them when they're at their freshest.
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  Do we need to do anything special once we put them in the refrigerator?
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  Do we need to put a paper towel in there?
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  Yeah, that depends on the specific type of produce.
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  And you want to check out Plated Up Kentucky Proud's website to see what you
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  should do with specific produce.
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  Because each type of produce is going to be stored in a specific way, depending on what it is.
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  Most of them are going to be fine in your crisper drawers.
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  But green lettuce leafy lettuce you might want to store
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  it a bit differently for best results for example
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  like swiss chard leaves you can wrap the bottoms of
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  those in a damp paper towel put them in a a
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  plastic bag a ziploc bag and that's going to help keep that a little longer
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  i do that sometimes with my herbs as well sometimes with herbs i will put them
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  in a mason jar and make a bouquet of herbs and put them in my refrigerator and
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  pull them out from my bouquet of herbs from the refrigerator.
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  There's also some things that are going to store well at room temperature,
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  Mindy, and those we know are citrus fruits are going to do pretty good at room temperature.
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  Winter squash are going to do well at room temperature.
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  Tomatoes and to the right, or you cut into them, they're fine at room temperature.
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  Onions and our garlic and potatoes, they're all good at room temperature.
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  We all want to keep them away from direct sunlight because we don't want to
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  grow new plants unless we want to grow new plants, but we want to keep them
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  away from direct sunlight, but they're going to do just fine at room temperature. Exactly.
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  LaToya, I appreciate all of this guidance because I know that keeping our
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  produce just as fresh as possible until we're ready to eat it is the goal.
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  And throwing away as little as possible will mean that we have less waste and
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  more to go in our bellies.
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  Right. We want to avoid food waste and eat the good foods that are provided
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  to us. Exactly. Before we wrap up, any last thoughts?
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  These are just some basic tips, but there's so many more additional tips and
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  resources available at our local extension offices.
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  So reach out to them. They're our best kept secrets and they're available in your county.
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  That's exactly right. In every Kentucky County, we have an extension office
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  and we have linked them in our show notes.
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  So if you do not know where to find your county extension office,
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  you can go directly to our show notes and you can find your county extension
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  office, as well as all of the other resources that LaToya has mentioned today.
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  LaToya, thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Bye, y'all.
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