Strawberries

Since I am trying to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet, I’ve been on a bit of a kick lately to learn how to take care of fresh produce so that it lasts longer and stays fresh. On Wednesday I showed how soaking apples in juice or lemon lime soda keeps them from getting brown when you pack them for lunch. Also for the last eleven days I have been comparing strawberry methods to find what helps keep them from getting moldy so quickly. In the past it seems they usually go bad on me in just a few days time.

In a post I did last March, I mentioned a tip from Food Lush on rinsing strawberries in vinegar water before storing them, to help kill bacteria, so they would continue to be edible for a longer period of time.  So I decided to put it to the test myself.
I purchased some strawberries (actually 3 packages).

I rinsed some in a mixture of vinegar water (1 part vinegar to 10 parts water), and
some in plain water.

Incidentally, in case you are tempted to eat them right out of the carton without
washing them, look how dirty the water was after rinsing them!

I let them drain before packing them back up and putting them in the produce drawer in the refrigerator, along with one container of strawberries that I did not rinse in anything.

I must say, I’ve never had strawberries last this long, even the ones I did nothing too. I gave up waiting for them to mold on day 11.

My conclusion with my little experiment was that rinsing them before storing them, absolutely makes a difference, just make sure you drain them on a towel to get the moisture off. Rinsing them in vinegar water, or even regular water, made them stay much fresher than doing nothing at all!