Most produce waste in a household kitchen is a storage problem, not a buying problem. The fridge is the right answer for some things and actively wrong for others.
Keep them out of the fridge
Tomatoes. Cold turns the texture mealy and flattens the flavour, and it does not reverse. Stem side down on the counter, out of direct sun.
Potatoes. Refrigeration converts the starch to sugar, which makes them sweet and makes chips brown too fast. Dark, cool and dry — and not next to the onions.
Onions. Somewhere airy and dark. In a sealed bag they sweat and rot; next to potatoes each makes the other sprout.
Bananas. Cold blackens the skin. Leave them out until ripe; after that the fridge will hold them a couple of days, black skin and all.
Avocados, until ripe. They ripen off the tree and cold stops that. Once soft, the fridge buys you two or three days.
Put them in the fridge
Carrots, with the green tops cut off first — the tops pull moisture out of the root and leave you with a bendy carrot in two days.
Leafy greens, wrapped in a damp cloth. Wash them when you cook them, not before.
Cauliflower and broccoli, whole and unwashed, jacket leaves on.
Apples and oranges, loose in the drawer rather than sealed in a bag.
The ethylene rule
Apples, bananas and tomatoes give off ethylene gas as they ripen, and ethylene ripens everything near it. That is useful when you want it — a hard avocado in a paper bag with a banana will be ready in a day — and expensive when you do not. Keep the ethylene producers away from leafy greens and carrots.
The two-minute habit that saves the most
Unpack produce as soon as it arrives instead of leaving it in the bag. A closed plastic bag on a warm counter is the fastest way to turn a good week's shopping into compost.
What is good this week
Seasonal produce, price drops and the odd recipe. One email a week, and one click to stop them.
