Gaby
While a billion people worldwide go hungry, we waste about a third of the food produced during farming, transport, retail, and consumption. That waste also drives unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and squanders energy, water, and labor. These tips will help you avoid spoilage and stop throwing food away needlessly.
Rules of Neighborly Conduct
Vegetables and fruits need special attention: some don’t do well stored together. For example, tomatoes belong with cucumbers only on a plate — they’re a poor pairing for storage. Tomatoes also fare poorly when stored next to cabbage, beets, carrots, or celery.
Do not store potatoes and onions together: they won’t last long in the same cellar or bin. Onions release ethylene, a gas that speeds potato spoilage. To keep potatoes from going bad, isolate the ethylene source in a closed box or a separate container. Other ethylene-sensitive produce should also be kept away from onions: leafy greens, peas, eggplants, all types of cabbage, watermelon, and unripe bananas. Ripe bananas emit ethylene too, as do pears, kiwis, apples, nectarines, plums, apricots, and peaches. Mangoes, persimmons, grapes, avocados, peppers, and tomatoes are on that list as well.
Marinade as a Preservative
To extend the life of vegetables, store them in a marinade: pickling can keep vegetables edible for up to ten weeks. When pickling tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, or asparagus, you can skip sterilizing the jars. Wash and dry the jars, then wash and cut the vegetables. For a half-liter jar, add a teaspoon each of sugar and salt to the water, 120 mL of vinegar, a pinch of mustard seeds, a few cloves of garlic, and some herbs. For longer-term preservation, pour warm marinade over the vegetables in the jar and seal with a lid. After the jar cools, place it in the refrigerator for two days; after that it can be stored at room temperature.
The Power of Cold
Perishable items need attention to temperature differences across refrigerator shelves. How cold each compartment gets depends on the fridge model. Only modern, high-tech models achieve an even distribution of cold; budget refrigerators often have different temperatures on different shelves. In a traditional two-compartment refrigerator with a freezing back wall, the top section is warmest, so place ready-to-eat items there and store raw fish and meat at the bottom. A single-compartment model works the opposite way: it’s coldest near the top under the freezer, so the middle shelf is best for dairy products. The least cold area is the door, which is where juices, sauces, and eggs belong.
Not for Everyone
Conversely, some items do worse in the refrigerator or don’t need it. Bread molds in a humid fridge, and bananas blacken. Store baked goods, oils, exotic fruits, and local vegetables used in borscht — cabbage, potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, and garlic — outside the fridge. Canned goods, chocolate, candy, honey, and jam also don’t belong in the fridge; move them to a kitchen cabinet and free up space for things that truly need cooling.
Freezing Secrets
The easiest way to save berries, fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms is to freeze them. For long-term storage, cut fruit, place it in bags or containers, and stash it in the freezer. Those preserved items will be useful later for dishes, desserts, and drinks. When freezing herbs, chop the leafy stems and add a few drops of oil to the container. You can also freeze smoothies: pour blended fruit with oats, nuts, honey, juice, or kefir into ice cube trays. Extra bread can go in the freezer too. Egg whites freeze well; whole eggs will crack, and yogurt tends to separate.
The Purpose of Inventory – Planning
Regularly checking your food supplies at home is essential for planning meals. Savvy cooks build menus and plan their shopping around what’s already in the fridge and pantry. Why buy more when you have enough supplies at home for a week? Some sanitary guidelines allow consumption of properly stored products up to three days past their expiration date, but meat and fish are exceptions. Test raw eggs for freshness by dropping them in water: fresh eggs sink. Mold is dangerous on soft cheeses (discard the whole product), while on hard cheeses you can cut away the mold and use the rest.
Usable Leftovers
To prevent food from spoiling, freeze, cook, or sauté leftovers promptly. Freeze leftover cooked dishes in plastic containers to create future meals that only need reheating. For convenient storage, use thin zip bags: food freezes quickly in them and can be thawed as needed. Freeze leftover sauces in ice cube trays, and label containers with the freezing date. Leftover dishes and many dairy products can keep for up to three months. If you doubt the freshness of milk, use it to make pancakes.
