Lose Baby Weight Motivating Mum Mel Briggs, shares her tips on how to store your fresh food when following a healthy eating plan or when losing pregnancy weight .
You can read Mel’s latest update here.
Do you find yourself often throwing out a lot of your fresh food because you couldn’t use it before it turned mouldy or soft?
This is something that is all too common in our household, so I thought I would put together a list of some tips for storing your food so that it can last longer when fresh or some good ways for storing in the freezer for future use.

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Lemons & Limes

• Juice and place into ice cube trays. Once frozen store in a snap lock bag in the freezer.  Another option is to cut limes and lemons into wedges and store in your freezer in snap lock bags.

Spring Onions

• Chop similar to using fresh and then freeze in a snap lock bag. They do not stick together so you do not need to store these in portion sizes.

Long Life Milk (Almond/Soy Milk etc)

• These only last for 3-5 days after opening so pour into ice cube trays to freeze and once frozen place into portion sized snap lock bags in the freezer.

Bananas

• Peel, cut in to halves and then cut each of the halves into 4 or 5 pieces. Store each half a banana in snap lock bags and freeze. Perfect to store ready for your Healthy Mummy Smoothies

Wraps/Tortillas/Pita Bread

• Once open these only last for a few days. So place a piece of baking paper or the cheap home brand plastic sandwich bags between each wrap and place back into the bag they came in and reseal. Then place flat in the freezer. The wraps now won’t stick together so in future you can pull apart, defrost when they are ready for use.

Celery

• Cut into sticks and place into a plastic container with a little water (you could also place a piece of paper towel at the bottom of the container to keep hold the moisture from the water) and then put the lid on the container and keep in fridge. I find this lasts longer than keeping the celery in the bag it comes in and then the celery is also all cut and ready to go for snacks or ready to cut into smaller pieces for use in meals. Another option is to wash, cut, dry and then wrap in alfoil before placing in the fridge.

Ginger

• To peel ginger, use a spoon rather than a potato peeler. I only heard of this recently and tried it out last week and it really is much easier! Once peeled, chop into thumb size pieces and freeze in snap lock bag and then grate a piece as needed.

Leftover Tomato Paste, Stock or Tin Tomatoes

• Pour into ice cube trays and once frozen store in snap lock bags in freezer.

Sweet Potato & Parsnips

• Cut into ‘fingers’ for baking chips and then put into a snap lock bag in portion sizes with a little oil and some mixed herbs and shake until coated and then freeze.

Garlic

• Store at room temperature in a dry location with little light to inhibit sprouting. Do not refrigerate (that is something I have learnt today) or store in a plastic bag. Store either in a paper bag, egg carton or mesh bag.

Chillies

• Stores in fridge for up to 3 weeks by either wrapping in paper towel or in a ventilated plastic bag.  To store in freezer wash in cold water and either leave whole or chop them up. Spread chillies on a flat surface and cover with a cloth and leave to dry completely so that they don’t stick together when frozen. Then freeze in a snap lock bag.

Chives

• Cut and store in snap lock bags in freezer similar to spring onions

Basil

• Remove leaves from stem, wash leaves and dry. Once fully dry store loosely in a sealed container or snap lock bag. Another option is to put basil into a blender on the ‘pulse’ setting to chop it, then add a little olive oil (which will stop the basil from going dark or black in colour in the freezer) and then put into ice cube trays. Once frozen store in snap lock bag in the freezer. Can also replace with a little water rather than oil.

Asparagus

• Cut off base of asparagus and place end of the asparagus stalk upright in jar of water, cover the tips with some plastic and put in fridge.  They can then last a few weeks, but be sure to change the water if it starts discolouring.

Avocado

• Cut, remove seed and store in a snap lock bag in fridge to use in a few days or place in freezer for use at a later stage. To ripen an avocado faster, keep out of refrigerator and place next to bananas.

Onions

• Store in a paper bag with holes punched (use a hole punch) about 1 inch apart, this allows for ventilation and store in a dark, dry location.  Onions can last up to 3 months this way. Never store onions in plastic bags and do not store onions with potatoes as they give off gases that will accelerate spoilage of each other. Garlic and Shallots can be stored this same way.

Cucumber

• Wrap in paper towel and then place in plastic bag in fridge.

Some of these tips I have been using and others I am looking forward to trying over the coming weeks. From doing this I look forward to saving money by not having as much food waste. I hope some of these tips will help out your household too.

Mel Briggs (You can read Mel’s latest weight loss update here.)

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