Quick Tip: extend the life of your berries

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A few weeks ago I talked about how I had just bought approximately two metric tons of fresh fruit from Costco and I was thinking that my healthy eating habits had hit a tipping point.  [Side note: we did in fact make it through almost all the fruit we bought, just working through the last few apples now]

Well 5 days later I got up early for a 6:30am hot yoga class with a girlfriend and after class immediately went to the nearest Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and donut with sprinkles. 

So... maybe that tipping point is a bit farther off than I thought.  That's what I get for blogging about my healthy eating habits! 

Anyway, I bought the fruit intending to try out a new vinegar wash that I found on Pintrest.  Fill a bowl with a mixture of one part vinegar to ten parts water (white vinegar or apple cider vinegar is best).  Dump the berries in and swirl them around to dislodge dirt, mold spores, etc.  Because the vinegar in the solution is so diluted you can either drain and put the berries right in the fridge or rinse them in fresh water.  The tip says you can pop them right back into the fridge but I was worried that leaving them wet might be problematic so I dried mine on a kitchen towel covered with a paper towel for about 30 mins. 

Drying my blueberries and washing my strawberries

Does this give you two weeks like the Pintrest tip said it would?  Not really.  But it does extend the quality of the berries quite a bit in my opinion.  I've done this twice now and I've lost zero berries to mold or soft spots.  Sure they still get a bit wrinkly but they last much longer than most out of season berries do.  I feel a lot less guilty buying pricey produce knowing that I'm going to get my money's worth.

Any other tips for extending the shelf life of produce?

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