Don’t you love the endless array and options of fruits and vegetables you get during the summertime? It’s like a free for all and anything we want we can grab for the taking. As lovely as it is to enjoy copious amounts of veggies and fruits in the summer it tends to get a little tougher for us in the winter months. It’s especially harder to find organic and on top of that it’s more expensive. Here are a few tips for obtaining organic produce during the winter time.
1. Know when to buy organic
Every fruit and vegetable that you buy does not need to be organic. There are certain fruits and vegetables that have the highest pesticide residues. These are the ones you need to worry about. They call these “The Dirty Dozen.” They also put out a list called “The Clean 15” which includes items that have very low levels of pesticide residue. These items are avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, onions, sweet peas, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwi, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes.
2. Grow Your Own
If you have a green thumb or you just simply like growing your own fruits and veggies in the summer, why not make a winter garden? There are plenty of vegetables that love the cold weather such as spinach, kale and beets. You can grow your veggies with or without a backyard. You can even grow your produce in containers or consider growing them indoors.
3. Store your food properly
Making sure you store your food properly is key to long lasting produce and avoiding waste. You should always keep your fruit in the fridge and store greens in bags with paper towels. Always keep your veggies in the crisper drawer and your potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic in paper bags. Another way to keep your produce fresh for up to 3x longer is to use Fresh Guard. These fresh guard balls absorb ethylene gas which slows down the premature ripening of your fruits and veggies.
Once you grow accustom to what types of veggies you need to buy organic and which ones you don’t you can enjoy your fruits and veggies all year round without feeling like your missing something.
