Best Food Tip EVER!!!

Who out there, besides me, goes to the store only once a week, but can't keep berries longer than a few days? Problem: I want berries ALL week, everyday! But I don't want to go to the store more than once a week.

I found this tip on-line a while back. (Although, I don't remember now my original source, it was somewhere on Pinterest, I think. I googled 'washing berries in vinegar' to see if it was legit, and trust me, it is!) It has seriously rocked my world! I haven't had a single berry go bad since I started doing this. Hold on to your hats, this is going to be life changing!

Okay, so berries generally go bad because of mold spores. Eww. Vinegar apparently destroys the bacteria and mold spores, so...here's what you do:

1. Make sure you have a salad/berry spinner. If you don't have one, go get one: I use mine ALL the time!

2. Go to the store and buy all the berries you want! Really!!!

These are not really all the berries I want. :)

 3. When you get home, set all of your berries out. Get a large bowl and put in 40 oz of water (I use the filtered water from my fridge) and 4 oz of white vinegar. (You can actually use any 10:1 ratio)

4. Dunk the berries in the vinegar/water mixture. Make sure you dunk them all under the water. Oh, and I PROMISE you aren't going to taste the vinegar on the berries!

5. While the berries are taking their bath. I like to quickly wash and dry the container and line it with a paper towel. To me, it seems there may be bacteria and spores there too I want to get rid of. And the paper towel is to absorb any extra moisture, which is also bad for berries.

6. Transfer them to your spinner with your hands or a slotted spoon. (If you have more berries, you can use the same water. I suggest rinsing the strawberries last, they tend to leave behind little "hairs", if you will)

7. Spin the excess water out.

8. Return berries to the container (or another container of your choice) and stick in the fridge. Forever. That is until you eat them. :)

Seriously, NO berries have gone bad in my house since I've started doing this. And SOMEHOW these blueberries (pictured below) got pushed way under the deli meat drawer and I found them THREE weeks later...we still ate them! (I gotta admit, I was going to throw them out, but my dad tested them and said they were good, so we all finished them off!)

Really, we ate these three-plus-week-old berries. Yes. Yes we did.
Hey, there was no mold and they were good! :)
(Not sure how many nutrients were retained after that long, but ya know...)