Grocery shopping always starts with the best intentions. We buy delicious fruits and vegetables to finally start eating healthier meals – juicy smoothies for breakfast and nutritious salads for lunch. However, it often seems that the simple trip from the grocery store to your fridge is too much for fresh produce to handle, and within a day or two, that beautiful crisp head of lettuce has become a squishy mess.
There has to be a way to make fresh foods last longer to reduce unnecessary waste and spending. We’ve got good news for you: here are some tips to do just that. Your stomach – and wallet – will thank you.
Shop seasonally
While you can buy most fruits and vegetables all year round, try to buy fresh produce when they are in season. Not only will they be more readily available, but they’ll also be a lot cheaper. You could even plant them in your garden, allowing you to go straight from the farm (or, in this case, garden) to the table.
Understand the storage requirements
Some fruits and veggies need to be refrigerated immediately, while others should be kept at room temperature. A simple rule of thumb is to store leafy greens in the fridge and potatoes, onions, and tomatoes in your pantry. Certain fruits, like avocados, mangoes, plums, and pears, need to be ripened at room temperature before being stored in the fridge. If you’re unsure, Google is your friend.
Temperature fluctuations in your refrigerator also impacts the life span of your perishables. Each time your open the refrigerator door, you lose cold air. LG’s InstaView refrigerator features an innovative glass panel that you knock on to reveal the contents without opening the door. This means less cold air lost, keeping your perishables fresher for longer.
Separate items
While the good-old faithful vegetable drawer seems like a safe space to store all your fresh produce – don’t! Some fruits produce ethylene gas which speeds up the ripening process, resulting in other fruits spoiling a lot faster. With the LG InstaView, there’s more than enough space to pack your produce separately, and with three cooling technologies that work together, your fruits and veggies will last much longer. Linear Cooling keeps the temperature consistent, Smart Cooling uses sensors and vents for more control, and Door Cooling+ delivers blasts of cool air across the entire fridge.
Know when to clean and when not to
We all have the urge to clean our fruits and vegetables before popping them into the fridge. Unfortunately, this often does more harm than good as it creates a breeding ground for bacteria. Instead, wash your fruits and veggies right before cooking or eating them. If you are concerned about germs, the LG InstaView uses Hygiene Fresh+ – an intelligent and powerful air filter that removes up to 99.9% of bacteria and reduces bad odours.
Keep produce whole
Cutting up fresh produce cuts down on the shelf life, so to preserve them, rather store them whole in storage containers with breathing holes. Airtight containers can actually smother the contents instead of keeping them fresh and crisp.
By making simple changes to how you store your groceries, you’ll see a huge difference in how long they last. Say goodbye to limp, rotten produce and hello to a new world of fresh, delicious produce.
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