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Spoiled Rotten

Americans throw out 25 percent of the produce we buy because it’s gone bad. How to stop the waste? Know when to shop, learn which fruits and veggies don’t get along—and put one of these egg-shaped gizmos in your fridge.

Shelley Levitt

Perhaps you do it once a week. Perhaps only when you trace those sulfurous odors to your refrigerator’s crisper drawers. But eventually, you toss out spoiled fruits and vegetables. Lots of them. Researchers at the University of Arizona recently spent a year tracking families’ food-use habits. Working with the United States Department of Agriculture, they interviewed the families about their eating habits, collected their grocery receipts, watched them prepare meals, and then sifted through every last discarded lettuce leaf, slice of bread, burger and bean.

The results, reported in 2002, were pretty shocking. The families tossed out an average of 470 pounds of food per year—about 14 percent of all food brought into the home—at an annual cost of $600. Every day, they discarded more than half a pound of fruits and veggies. In total, Americans chuck a fourth of all the produce they buy, mostly because it’s gone bad, says Timothy Jones, PhD, contemporary archaeologist at the University of Arizona. Nationally, we dump $43 billion worth of food every year.

Wasting produce is, well, a waste—bad for our wallets and bad for the environment. Plus, who wants to make a salad when confronted with a bin of rotting sludge? All this led us to ask: How can we keep produce fresh longer?

the ABCs of fresh

“The main way to lengthen shelf life is by using cold temperatures to slow food’s respiration, or ‘breathing’ process,” explains Marita Cantwell, PhD, a postharvest specialist at the University of California, Davis.

In general, the warmer the temperature, the faster the rate of respiration, which is why refrigeration is critical for most produce. But while you want to slow it down, you don’t want to stop the breathing altogether. “The worst thing to do is seal fruits and vegetables in an airtight bag,” says Barry Swanson, a food scientist at Washington State University. “You’ll suffocate them and speed up decay.”

Some fruits emit ethylene, an odorless, colorless gas that speeds ripening and can lead to the premature decay of nearby ethylene-sensitive vegetables. Put spinach or kale in the same bin as peaches or apples, and the greens will turn yellow and limp in just a couple of days. So the first trick is to separate produce that emits ethylene from produce that’s sensitive to it.

There are also some innovations to help extend the life of your fruits and veggies. Some products actually absorb ethylene and can be dropped into a crisper, such as the E.G.G. (for ethylene gas guardian), which is shaped like, you guessed it, an egg (see opposite), and ExtraLife, a hockey puck–like disk. A variety of produce bags are also on the market, such as those by Evert-Fresh and BioFresh, which both absorb ethylene and create an atmosphere that inhibits respiration. At least as important as how you store produce is when you buy it.

Do all your other shopping first so that your berries and broccoli don’t get warm—and respire rapidly—while you’re picking up nonperishable items. Get the produce home and into the fridge as soon as possible. If you’ll be making several stops between the market and kitchen, put a cooler in the car. Shop farmers’ markets soon after they open: Just-harvested greens wilt rapidly once they’ve been in the sun for a few hours.

Even under optimal conditions, fragile raspberries will never last as long as thick-skinned oranges. Eat more perishable items first. And if you still find yourself with a bushel of ripe produce—and a business trip around the bend—improvise. Make a fruit pie, a potful of soup or a great big vat of tomato sauce, and throw it in the freezer. You’ll relish your foresight when you get home.

keeping greens fresh: a real-life road test

WHAT WE TESTED Six different systems that promise to keep produce fresh longer. Four are for sale; two you get when you buy some brands of prepackaged greens.

1. The E.G.G., an egg-shaped ethylene absorber you drop into crisper drawers ($4 each at 4theegg.com)

2. The ExtraLife disk, another crisper-bin drop-in that absorbs ethylene ($9 for two at reusablebags.com)

3. BioFresh bags, special bags that allow produce to breathe but also absorb ethylene ($4 for 12 bags at reusablebags.com)

4. Tupperware’s FridgeSmart lettuce crisper— a plastic drum with built-in venting and a raised grid to lift produce away from condensation ($26 at tupperware.com)

5. Earthbound Farm’s bagged-salad packaging—a clear bag with microscopic holes that provide rapid oxygen transmission for fast-breathing leaves

6. Rigid, clear plastic “clamshells” (in this case, also from Earthbound Farm), containers for greens that act like a mini-crisper and protect against bruising and crushing

DAY 1
One tester purchased one 5-oz. package of Earthbound Farm’s baby arugula salad in a plastic bag and the same salad in a clamshell container. She opened both packages, removed a handful of greens from each, resealed both packages and and stored them on a refrigerator shelf. (Note: Will Daniels, director of quality assurance at Earthbound Farm, suggests that salads be used within 2–3 days of opening a package.)

A second tester bought five heads of Romaine lettuce and stored them five different ways:

• On a refrigerator shelf in the Tupperware FridgeSmart container.
• In a crisper bin with an ExtraLife disk, plus an apple and an avocado—both high ethylene producers—to test the efficacy of the disk. He wrapped the lettuce in moist paper towels and kept it in the plastic bag from the produce aisle.
• In a crisper bin with an E.G.G. plus an apple and an avocado, with the lettuce wrapped in moist paper towels and in its plastic bag.
• In a BioFresh bag.
• In a crisper bin with an apple and an avocado, with the lettuce wrapped only in moist paper towels and in its plastic bag—the “control group.”

DAY 4
ARUGULA: The leaves in both the clam- shell and plastic packaging are pristine.
LETTUCE: All five heads are still crisp and moist.

DAY 7
ARUGULA: The bagged leaves are starting to get soggy; the leaves in the clamshell container are still crisp.
LETTUCE: The control group has lost a little crispness and some leaves show faint brown veins. None of the rest show any signs of wilting.

DAY 9
ARUGULA: The clamshell leaves are near pristine. The bagged arugula is, well, a mixed bag—some leaves are dry and perky, others are becoming slimy.
LETTUCE: These lettuces keep going and going. The FridgeSmart head still looks almost as fresh as the day it was purchased. The BioFresh lettuce is also crisp and moist, with just some slight browning on a few smaller outer leaves, much like the head stored with the E.G.G. The outer leaves of the ExtraLife head are a little browner and more wilted, but the inner leaves are still crisp. The control group has a touch more browning.

DAY 11
ARUGULA: The bag of arugula is sodden and smelly (to be fair, it’s one day past its “best if used by” date). The tester tossed it. The clamshell arugula (with three days left on the “best by” date) is still crisp with a good spicy taste.
LETTUCE: There’s some excess moisture on the Romaine in the FridgeSmart, but this would easily be taken care of with a little blotting. The E.G.G. head still has only touches of brown on the outer leaves. The leaves on the ExtraLife lettuce are a little browner but still going strong. The head in the BioFresh bag is more browned and wilted, and the control group even more so.

DAY 13
ARUGULA: The tester is about to go out of town, so she cleaned out her fridge and enjoyed a satisfying arugula salad from the clamshell while she packed.

DAY 14
LETTUCE: The outer leaves on the Fridge- Smart head are just beginning to brown. The Romaine stored with the E.G.G. is still in decent shape—the leaf tips have lost some crispness but they’re nowhere near the slimy stage. The ExtraLife lettuce is slightly limper, and the browning is migrating to the second layer; still, there are plenty of edible leaves. The BioFresh head is looking a little less, um, fresh. The control group is limper and browner.

THE WINNERS
ARUGULA: Clamshell packaging—it kept the leaves fresh for nearly two weeks, while not taking up valuable crisper space. (Note: Our tester didn’t pay a premium for the clamshell packaging; it was the same price as bagged greens.)
LETTUCE: A tie between the E.G.G. and the FridgeSmart—both kept the Romaine salad-worthy for two weeks. Second place goes to the ExtraLife disk. The BioFresh bag did well for a while, but was outpaced at the end.

fastest to slowest spoilers: what to eat first

You can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables with just a single weekly trip to the supermarket, with proper storage and a little planning.

The key is eating the more perishable produce early on. Use this guide—created with the help of Marita Cantwell, PhD, postharvest specialist at the University of California, Davis—based on a Sunday shopping trip. The timing suggestions are for ready- to-eat produce, so allow extra days for ripening if you’re buying, say, green bananas or not-quite-ripe pears.

And remember, looks count. Appearance —vivid green spinach; smooth, unbruised peaches; plump oranges— is the best clue to whether fruits and veggies are fresh to begin with.

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