Peter Piper may have picked a peck of pickled peppers…but I’m willing to be there were a lot of bad ones. I’m mean, we’re talking about 2 gallons of peppers! Honestly, what was he going to do with all those pickled peppers?
While it’s a funny tongue twister, it’s something to remember at the store. Remember my nagging about having a plan for what you’re going to buy? That includes knowing the quantities. If your recipe calls for 1 cup Diced Onion…how much is that? Because I’m a smart-aleck…it’s 1/2 a medium onion. But if you only use that one cup this week…what are you going to do with the other half of the onion? Far too many times my answer has been to let it spoil in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator. Of course, you could chop it up and freeze it for later.
Links Inside
Titanic
Mean Girls
Smith’s Market
TheKitchn.com
Harvest
GRACE Communications Foundation
seasonalfoodguide.org
So my advice (which I’ll try to start heeding myself) is to check your produce at the store. We’ve recently brought home too many bags of sickly grapes. It’s gotten to the point that I’m not allowed to pick them out anymore. Since I don’t eat many grapes my poor purchasing habits weren’t impacting me, but Hectic Wife was fed up with the tasteless, puny excuses for these fruits. So I’m off grape duty!
Here at Hectic Manor we eat huge quantities of produce. Honestly, my family would prefer all fruit and skip the vegetables…but I’m not going to do that. I recently got to thinking about how I go about selecting produce at the store, and realized that I use a lot of different tools from my toolbox. I figured it would be a good idea to share them. But before I did that, I did some research on what we’re supposed to be doing…not what I actually do. Remember, it’s very important to do as I say and not as I do. I’m a shiny example of how not to act. Trust me on this.
So the rest of this post contains things that I learned during my research with a few anecdotes and my own uncommon sense thrown in for good measure.
Let’s get to it!
What To Look For
So we’re here in the produce section of the grocery store. All the fruits and veggies you could imagine…and if you’re like me, you’re overwhelmed. Of course, you’ve got your handy shopping list to help guide you. You do have a shopping list, right? Phew, I was worried there for a second.
Rather than make this a generic, watered-down explanation…I’m going to use a specific example of selecting raspberries. These delicious fruits are the bane of my existence. I swear I’ve had raspberries look great in the store at noon and by dinnertime I discover enough moldy ones to make me crazy. So I’m going to use them as an example of how to pick produce. It’s pretty similar for all the other fruits and vegetables, so these are a great example.
Alrighty then, with list in hand it’s time to start picking out your produce. Get ready, this is one of those rocket-science moments: You’re going to have to use your five senses to pick your fruits and veggies. Radical, eh?
OK, you’re probably not going to get to use all five, since if you spend too much time tasting, you might have an uncomfortable chat with the produce manager. But sight, touch, smell, and even hearing are all going to play a role. Take a look at that package of raspberries. Do they look like something you want to eat? Do they look fresh? Raspberries are a fragile fruit, they take a beating being picked, sorted, shipped, and stocked. If the package doesn’t look good…find another one. If enough packages don’t look good, figure out a substitute for raspberries. It’s just not worth wasting the money on questionable ones.
Pick up the package and shake it gently. Was there any mold hiding between the raspberries? It’s going to show up as either white or black discoloration. Or maybe it’ll be fuzzy. It’s not hard to figure out…mold on fruit looks gross and you’ll know it even if you’ve never seen it before. Of course, I say that now, but I didn’t tell my kids that Kiwis had fuzz on the outside. They’d only eaten them after I’d skinned them. So three weeks in a row I got the report that “all the Kiwis were bad”. We finally went to the store together and I got that one straightened out. But generally, fuzz on anything but Kiwis and Peaches is not appetizing…and denotes a fruit or veggie you shouldn’t purchase.
While you were gently shaking the package, did the raspberries move around freely? If they are clinging to each other like Jack and Rose in Titanic, they’re hiding something. Put down that package and move on.
As the berries tumbled around was their color consistent? They should all be rosy red. If there’s a lot of variation in the color, it’s likely that some of them aren’t ripe. This is a big problem with other fruit, namely strawberries, blueberries, and especially blackberries. Face it, you know what they should look like because you’ve eaten them. If the darlings in the package don’t look like the ones you’ve eaten…buyer beware!
Generally, you’re looking for produce that doesn’t look wilted, has a consistent coloration, doesn’t have bruises, and doesn’t show signs of ickiness. Your eyes are your first line of defense against buying those raspberries, getting them home, and then immediately throwing them away.
Is It Ripe?
Now that your produce have passed the sight test, it’s time to figure out if they’re ripe. Raspberries are a bit difficult to test, since they’re in a package almost all the time. For other fruit, you can use your sense of touch directly. I’d never heard the advice “…the fruit or vegetable should feel heavy for it’s size…” before. That sounds like something you would say about a baby’s diaper that needs changing. But after reading it in dozens of sources, it’s apparently common knowledge. I’ve always known this inherently, but it sure isn’t something I would’ve said on my own. But now you’ve learned that common knowledge…your produce should feel “heavy for it’s size”. I’m dubbing this the heft test because I want to make it a thing. You know, like fetch in Mean Girls.
Wandering back to our raspberries, take a whiff. Do they smell good? They should smell a little sweet. You don’t have to stick your nose against the package and inhale deeply (that’s kind of frowned upon). Just waft a little of their aroma near your nose. If they smell too sweet or have any other unappetizing odor…put ‘em down. Again, like art, you’ll know it when you smell it (or in the case of art, see it).
On a weird note, I pick cantaloupe by smell. You see, I’m not a fan of these melons. They are one of the few foods that I won’t eat under any circumstances. Yet I’m a good judge when it comes to picking ripe ones. I do the sight test. Then I do the heft test. If the melon passes, I gently press the spot where the stem was connected and take a whiff. If the smell makes me slightly nauseous…it’s a winner. If there’s no smell it’s not ripe. If it makes me really nauseous because the smell is really strong…it’s over-ripe. I realize this exact test won’t work for you, but you get the idea. Your sense of smell developed to help your ancestors. Just because we don’t use it as much doesn’t mean we can’t. So take advantage of your nose to do something other than hold your glasses!
Hearing isn’t really helpful with our raspberries, but it’s a key ingredient to lots of other produce. Gently thumping a melon will let you hear if it sounds hollow. If you get that hollow sound, you’ve got a winner. If it sounds solid it’s not ripe or the rind is really thick. I tried to do a Google search for other examples of using hearing to select produce and while I know a lot more about hearing aids and cochlear implants now…I couldn’t really find any other great examples. If you’ve got one, please add it to the comments!
Our local fruit market here in Hutchinson, Smith’s Market had some advice for picking watermelons. Specifically, they said, “to select a perfect watermelon, find Chris Barnes and have him pick one for you”. I’m guessing that there’s a Chris Barnes at your local store too. If not I’ll see if we can send him your way.
Actually, somebody like Chris is one of your biggest resources. Folks who work in the produce section know their stuff. They see the good, the bad, and the ugly among the fruits and vegetables. Take a chance and ask the folks working in the produce section to help you out. They love to share their knowledge…and oh man have I met some characters! You never know, you might make a new friend!
If you’re anything like me though, you’re not going to want to strike up a conversation in the produce department on every trip. Nobody has time for that! I found two amazing resources that I depend on for selecting produce: The folks over at TheKitchn.com have one of the most comprehensive guides I’ve ever seen. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, but honestly this is such a great guide I’m not even going to try and replicate it. Just check it out if you want to know how to pick anything from an artichoke to a turnip. They’ve got you covered!
If you’re more of an app person, you’re in luck. There’s an app for that! Seriously, there’s actually a really good iOS app called Harvest that contains every fruit and vegetable I’ve ever bought. The app has in-season indicators (more on that in a bit), tips on how to select ripe produce, tips on how to store your produce, and even indicators as to what the pesticide levels are. Not only that, but you can narrow the results down to your region! While Harvest isn’t a free app, at $1.99 I saved more than the price with my first trip to the produce aisle. I was vastly more confident that the raspberries were actually worth buying and taking home. Harvest not only saved my sanity, but saved my wallet as well! Highly recommended.
Picking fruit that’s ripe also varies by how far away from the growing region you live. Here in Kansas all our bananas have to be shipped a long way. On a school field trip with one of the Hectic Kids we learned that bananas are picked green and hard and shipped by boat and then truck. They have huge rooms at the warehouse where they force the bananas to ripen. So it’s important to know which fruits have to be picked when they are ripe and which ones will continue to ripen after picking. You have a lot more leeway with the ones that ripen after picking, since you can buy them slightly unripe and they’ll continue to ripen at home. On the other hand, if you pick unripe raspberries…you’re stuck. They’re not going to ripen, just rot.
Just like the commercial ripening rooms for bananas, it’s possible to speed up the ripening process for some produce. If you’re got peaches, pears or plums you can put them into a brown paper bag at room temperature. Loosely close the top of the bag to deter pests. Then let them go for a day or two. Your rock-hard peaches will ripen pretty nicely. Apparently you can add a banana or apple to the bag and that will speed things up more…although I’ve never tried that.
Add infographic
Shopping In-Season
Another way to maximize your food dollars and get the freshest produce is to shop when fruits and vegetables are in season. Honestly, it’s a lot harder to know what’s in season nowadays since produce is shipped all over the globe. So it’s not uncommon for us to get locally out-of-season fruits here in Kansas that come from South America. Since their winter and our winter are essentially opposites, we can get fruit that used to be unavailable all year round. But you have to be wary of the shipping times, cost, and damage to the produce. When the shipping takes a while, that list of what will ripen and what won’t after picking becomes really important.
The GRACE Communications Foundation has an awesome website at seasonalfoodguide.org that lets you pick your state and time of year and it will tell you what’s in season. It’s an awesome compliment to the guide from TheKitchn.com and the Harvest app. Here in Kansas in early February our in-season produce is pretty much limited to mushrooms and sprouts. By late April we’ll be looking at asparagus, chives, green onions, lettuce, parsnips, peas, radishes, spinach, and watercress also being in-season.
When produce is in season you get the best flavor, quality, and price. But as I mentioned above, it’s kind of difficult to know when different fruits and vegetables are actually in season, so use those resources.
Buying pre-cut
Anytime you’re in the produce department you’re now surrounded by convenience packs. There are packages of pre-cut broccoli and celery. You can buy shredded carrots and cabbage. And there are mixes of vegetables in bag form too. The same is true of fruit, with fruit mixtures, pre-cut fruit, and all sorts of other combinations. It’s really tempting to go this route. Let’s face it, while the cost of the pre-cut produce is much higher than the uncut options…you can save time. In some cases, purchasing pre-cut veggies is the difference between having a home-cooked meal or a trip to McDonald’s. So pre-cut produce can be both a time-saver and a nutrition enhancer. But remember…this convenience comes at a cost.
The other reason to buy pre-cut items is because they relieve your stress over prepping a particular fruit or vegetable. While we love mangoes here at Hectic-Manor…cutting them makes me crazy. I would rather gouge my eyes out than select ripe mangoes and then cut them at home. Don’t get me wrong, I know exactly how to cut a mango. It shouldn’t be all that hard, but it’s one of the highest-stress things I do in the kitchen. So buying pre-cut mangoes has a huge psychological benefit to me. Keep that in mind when you’re considering pre-cut produce…it might be worthwhile on multiple levels.
But dang, they are expensive!
Bringing it Home
As I was doing the research for this post I ran across a piece of advice I’d never heard before, but makes logical sense. Several writes stressed the need to separate fresh fruits and vegetables separately from any raw meat, poultry, and seafood when bagging them at checkout. A couple went so far as to insist that fruit be bagged separately from vegetables. I think the latter folks went a bit far, but I guess I can see benefits to all the various forms of separation. At the very least you’ll likely reduce any cross contamination between the foods and you’ll keep the fruits from being damaged in transit.
It’s something to think about as the kid bagging your groceries if randomly tossing things into your bags. Don’t worry, I’m that guy who has to tell him how to do his job too!
Wrap-Up
There you have it, five things I learned about buying produce. We consume a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables here at Hectic Manor and as I was writing this post I realized that I’ve fallen into the trap of grab and go when I’m at the store far too often. That leads to a lot of spoilage and waste…and unnecessary expense. I need to be more careful with my produce shopping, that’s for sure!
So, did I miss anything? Do you have any tips, tricks, or tools that you use to maximize your food dollars and save your precious time? If you do, please share them in the comments. I’d love to learn more.
Make it a great day in the kitchen!
