How to keep your Trader Joe’s vegetables as fresh as possible

I HATE THROWING OUT FOOD! Don’t you?!

I’ve thought about posting something like this for awhile, instead of a review of something. With everything costing more and more frankly now it seems more important than ever. Going shopping is painful. We all know all too well, the horrible feeling of having bought vegetables, and have to throw them out – you didn’t use them fast enough. They rotted.

Say buying something like washed, ready to eat Mixed Greens at Trader Joe’s. I’ve found those go faster than almost anything else I buy at Trader Joe’s. After three days, I will usually find a few rotten pieces deep in the middle.

So how do you keep your veggies and stuff from going bad as long as possible?

Here’s some things I do which seem to help extend the life span a bit.

Every vegetable and every package is different and presents a different challenge. A LOT of stuff we buy at Trader Joe’s is packaged in plastic, a plastic bag, or the like. Way too much plastic! In general though. The issue is water or moisture. Moisture is both the friend and enemy with our packages of veggies. Just enough is good to keep them as fresh as possible. But most stuff is in plastic and with plastic there is usually too much moisture build up. We know what will happen. If its too wet. It will rot faster.

One reason stuff goes bad is usually excess moisture. SO I PUNCH AIR HOLES.

I add air holes if there aren’t any already. Even if there are, I will usually add more. What I do is a combination of many things but it’s kind of always, making air holes. Sometimes adding a paper towel to absorb moisture.

Take that bag of ARUGULA which I buy frequently. The first thing I do before I put that bag of greens in the fridge is take a knife with a sharp point and STAB IT all over. I will seriously stab that bag all over and put some holes in the bag. Not two or three. Maybe 20 times on each side of the bag.

The bag of GREEN ONIONS? Same thing. I take a sharp knife or scissors and cut some air holes in the bag all over. It’s tricky as you don’t want stuff to dry up, but not have too much moisture either. With green onions, sometimes I will remove them all from the bag and wrap a paper towel around the bottom which is barely moistened with a few drops of water to keep those root ends moist. A Cantonese chef I watch alot of cooking videos of, recommend standing the green onions upright in the fridge, in a plastic bag with the roots wrapped a bit in barely moist paper towels.

What about say a package of PERSIAN CUCUMBERS? They have cardboard on the bottom which is breathable and good. The plastic wrapping them again, I pierce it all over to make lots and lots of air holes.

A box of parsley or cilantro? I stab the plastic box like crazy to let some moisture out and also take a paper towel and wrap up the whole bunch of parsley in the paper towel.