@seldo Good storage. I got those Oxo produce containers and even without the little filter packets, they still prolong the freshness of fruits and veg. Having them not touch the side of the container, allowing some airflow, and having it not sit directly in water helps most fresh produce not get all mushy. You can also refresh uncut lettuce heads by soaking them in water for like 30 minutes.
@seldo
I eat the veggies until there are no more and then don't eat anymore until my next delivery. I also always have frozen broccoli in the freezer if I feel the need for greens. But I'm not a big fan of veggies.
@seldo Yup, have to say I gave up on salad. Although, baby spinach keeps for a week in a glass airtight container after a quick water wash! Heard of the low-tech vegetable keeper made of 2 porous plant pots with moist sand in between, never tried it.
@seldo@onelson Check the greens each day, remove yellowing, limp, or gross (most fruit and veg release more ethylene gas the riper they are which hastens the process in other fruits and veg around them). Place a dry paper towel in the bag/container and replace it if it gets saturated. (they want moisture but not too much and as they turn cell walls break down and release water inside). You should be able to get 7+ days easily. And (this is the hard bit) use them each day for at least one meal.
@seldo Oh, good question. For me: a) I don’t eat enough vegetables, b) I do supplemental trips to the trader joe’s during the week (and that’s usually where I get salad greens), c) frozen vegetables to some extent
@seldo We optimize for stuff that will stay fresh for a couple weeks. Decent leafy greens like arugala and baby spinach or whatever all need to be consumed within a few days, but there's plenty of other options from kale to iceberg that don't.
Many kinds of salad greens also don't take kindly to being crushed, and if you squish them in the drawer, they'll rot almost immediately. But if you baby them, they'll easily last a week or more
@seldo I don't eat salad, and for vegetables to be used in recipes, we usually chop them up and freeze them so they're ready to be used anytime during the week
@seldo I drink a lot of fruit juice, and also put folded up kitchen roll in my bags of fresh spinach to absorb moisture and slow their wilting over time
@seldo I have glass prep boxes that cut things go into and then into the refrigerator. Works for the most part. If onions are involved don't remove the stem unless necessary.
@seldo
Less than weekly is since the pandemic. A surprising amount of my mental activity is meal planning these days. We do grow some of our own, in the yard in summer and in Aerogardens and pots under growlights in winter. I buy veggies that get processed quickly (and then we can eat leftovers later) and others that will keep. Lots of second week cabbage or beet dishes. For salad I love radicchio, which is basically fine after being ignored in the crisper for a week and a half.
@seldo Salad can die in a fire, but tbh I find most other fruit/veg things will last a week (just about) - I just tend to eat the stuff with the shortest shelf life first.
@seldo I just don't eat salad. Sometimes I'll have prepackaged salad for a couple of days after the grocery delivery but it doesn't meaningfully keep longer much than that and buying the components instead of prepackaged means the quantities are too large for me to get through before they go off
@seldo I eat salad for 5-6 days after shopping, until I run out of salad makings, and then I switch to baked/steamed potatoes, frozen fish or sardines, sandwiches, instant/canned soups, cheese and crackers, nuts, dried fruit, etc, for a few more days, and maybe order a pizza. Then I do another grocery run.
I find that variety is as important to my health (physical and mental) as nearly any other part of my diet, and this pattern gives me that.
@seldo eat salad erryday, stored in the veg drawer in plastic usually. It wants moist and not open to the air; I usually buy a 5 gal bag of local greens and they last a week no problem.
@seldo My husband and I make more frequent small stops now (and will soon live like 5 minutes from a very nice grocery store with excellent produce), but my family was resolutely one-trip-per-week (on Sundays after church).
We mostly ate canned vegetables heated up in the microwave without additional preparation or seasoning, which goes a long way to explaining why I did not care for vegetables as a kid. The rubbery, slightly greyish canned green beans were the worst.
@seldo Most salad and vegetables last fine for a week if they're stored correctly and actually relatively fresh i.e: haven't been sitting on a store shelf for an additional week.
@seldo buying from a farm store helps a lot, other than that, hope for the best. Usually will do small runs to the store to grab a specific thing if we need it.
@seldo I voted "less than this" but walking home from my bus stop is literally through a grocery store, so I don't consider grabbing like 1 thing on my way through "grocery shopping"; YMMV
@seldo I feel like shopping only for self or maybe one other person could be once a week or less, but beyond that, unless you have inordinate storage space, it's hard not to need multiple runs.
@seldo several major retail chains here introduced delivery at the start of the pandemic and honestly being able to just throw stuff in cart at your own pace and order when ready is awesome. About once a week for us. Anf the only time I go for groceries myself is to get rid of deposit cans/bottles.
@seldo Since a couple of years, I get my groceries delivered once a month. It means I only have to spend time on groceries +/- 1hr a month, which is a delight. There's less risk of impulse buying too.
(And yes, there are enough sorts of fresh fruit/veg that will last that long.)
@seldo this really depends on where you live in relation to your grocery store. In SF, I shopped every day for 1 day worth of food, because I lived 2 blocks from my main grocery. Here in Portland, I'm a 15
minute drive away, so I shop once a week.
@seldo When I've lived in rural areas where I travel far by car, once a week. In a city when commuting to the office, almost daily on my way home. Where I am now, no office and a short cargo bike ride to the store, every couple days.
@seldo I said once a week but actually it's more than that; we often swing by the neighborhood store for odds and ends; we do a big trip around once a week.
Add comment