Want Your Produce To Stay Fresh , Never Use a Plastic Bag Again.

The sun is high, the sky is blue, the grass is green—summer's here. And for a lot of us, that means it's farmer's market season. But we all know the feeling when your eyes are bigger than your refrigerator, and all that beautiful produce (which isn't cheap!) ends up wilted, rotten, and sad. Good news: your artichoke heartbreak can be avoided. It's just a matter of making a space where fruits and veggies can thrive, and knowing which ones get along together and which ones don't.

Know before Stow.

First, let's lay some ground rules. Rule one: stop using plastic bags. We know—those flimsy plastic produce bags are pretty much your only option when you're actually at the market or the grocery store. That's why you should bring your own. Fruits and vegetables need to breathe, and they can't when they're cooped up in an airtight sack. Plus, it's just better for the environment.

Rule two: know what does and doesn't go into the fridge. Berries, yes. Bulb vegetables like garlic and onion, no. Peaches and avocados should ripen at room temperature, then go in the fridge. Oranges can be stored in the pantry or the fridge, but they'll last longer chilled. For everything else, well, here's a handy guide covering pretty much anything you'll find at an outdoor market.

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You Gotta Keep Em'Seperated.

There's one last set of rules that you need to keep in mind, and those have to do with knowing what produce plays well with others. It all comes down to how and why fruits and veggies ripen. Ripening plants produce a chemical called ethylene, and the riper they are, the more ethylene they produce. But ethylene doesn't just come out of ripening produce; it causes produce to ripen, too. That means that if one apple is going soft, even its non-apple neighbors will follow suit (yeah, that "one bad apple" expression is legit). Too much ethylene leads to a loss of chlorophyll, which makes greens turn yellow and brown.

Some fruits and veggies produce more of the stuff than others, and knowing which can help you keep your produce fresh for longer. Apples, avocados, bananas, eggplant, tomatoes, and peaches all give off a lot of ethylene and are also quite sensitive to it, so you'll want to store them alone, while bell peppers, berries, pineapple, citrus, and kale are hardy enough to pair up with any other produce. In the middle are veggies that don't give off much ethylene but can easily be affected by it: broccoli, carrots, green beans, asparagus, and brussels sprouts, plus grapes and watermelon all can be kept with their own kind, but far away from the big ethylene producers. Then again, you can also use ethylene producers to your advantage. Want to speed up the ripening process for your avocados? Put them in a bag with an apple or banana, place the bag in the pantry, and after a day or two they'll be ready for guac. Yum.

Even if you bring your own shopping bags to the farmer's market, most people don't think to bring produce bags to keep fruits and veggies compartmentalized. That's where The Mighty Fix from MightyNest comes in. Sign up for this monthly subscription service and you'll start receiving eco-friendly alternatives to stuff you use every day, such as breathable produce bags. Made of a fine polyester mesh, the bags are translucent enough to see what's inside but will hold up to heavy use. They're also machine washable, so it's easy to keep them clean for future grocery trips. At this point, the fact that they help the environment by cutting down on plastic waste is really just icing on the organic carrot cake.
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The Best Way To Remove Pesticides From Produce.

Even the less-than-cautious among us still probably give their fruit and vegetables a quick rinse under the tap before eating them. That's in an effort not only to wash off dirt and debris, but also to remove any pesticides. You might go even further by using a vegetable brush or a store-bought veggie wash. How effective is all of that, really? More importantly, how worried should you be about pesticides in the first place?

Scrub a Dub Dub.

Lucky for you, science has tackled this problem before. Here's how effective the most popular produce-washing methods really are:

• Plain water: A 2008 review published in the journal Food Research International found that tap water only reduced the residue of five different pesticides by 20 percent, at most — but at least it's something. Distilled or filtered water may be more effective, and a good several-minute soak can go even further, especially for cutting down on bacteria.
• Soap: Soap isn't meant for washing food, and it's not clear how effective it is against pesticides. It could also possibly seep into the produce, making you ingest another non-food chemical on top of the ones you were trying to wash away. We don't recommend it.

Commercial veggie washes: A study in 2000 by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station found that washing certain fruits and vegetables with a commercial veggie wash was no more effective than rinsing them under tap water for a minute when it came to getting rid of pesticides. Researchers at the University of Maine got the same result for reducing bacteria. The verdict: don't waste your money.
• Vinegar: The Food Research review found that washing tomatoes in a vinegar solution significantly reduced the residues of six different pesticides, some by as much as 94 percent. And in 2007, a Cook's Illustrated test found that vinegar reduced 98 percent of the bacteria on apples and pears. Cheap, nontoxic — what's not to like? Try filling a spray bottle with one part vinegar to three parts water and keep it next to the sink.
• Baking soda: In October 2017, researchers from the University of Massachusetts published a study in the journal Agricultural and Food Chemistry that said soaking apples in a baking soda and water solution for 12–15 minutes can remove almost every trace of pesticides from the fruit's surface. If you have the time, this one's a winner for sure.

It should be mentioned that none of these fixes can remove pesticides that have already seeped into the fruits and vegetables. If you're really worried (which you probably shouldn't be), general preparation methods like peeling, cooking, and canning can remove a substantial amount of pesticides throughout the produce. Peeling goes further than washing by removing the layer that the pesticides have reached; cooking and canning works because many pesticides degrade in heat.

A Few Caveats.

Why not just buy organic? you might ask. Contrary to popular belief, organic produce is grown with pesticides, too. The pesticides just can't be synthetic (and as we've mentioned before, whether a chemical is synthesized from scratch or just perfected from a natural source doesn't say anything about its safety).

In 2011, researchers at UC Davis found that the organic versions of the so-called "dirty dozen" list of fruits and vegetables that pose the highest pesticide risk aren't any safer. They also say that pesticides on those fruits and vegetables were way, way below the acceptable limit set by the EPA, and that the list "lacks scientific credibility" to boot.

But if you're still concerned, take a few precautions. Keep a spray bottle of diluted vinegar on hand for quick rinses and baking soda for when you have the time. Peel or cook the fruits and veggies you're most worried about. But don't stop eating them. The science is in on that front, and it says that you should eat your fruits and veggies if you want to live a healthy life.

So that it for now friend. Meet you guys in another mind blowing article. Have any questions ask me in the comments. If you like this blog make sure to subscribe it for daily science article. If you want us to make a article on your favorite topics mail us, Thank you ,Have a great day.