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Saturday, May 5, 2012

On preventing mold in Berries

This tip is circulating around the Internet. It often includes a nice photo, but since they seem to be copyright protected so I won't post them. But having had particularly bad luck with keeping berries this year so far, I wanted to pass this along (slightly modified from the original):

Berries are delicate. Raspberries in particular seem to mold before you get them home from the market. There's nothing more tragic than paying $4 for a pint of local raspberries, only to look in the fridge the next day and find fuzzy mold growing on their insides.

Wash them with vinegar.
When you get the berries home, prepare a mixture of one part vinegar (white or apple cider probably work best) and ten parts water. Dump the berries into the mixture and swirl around. Drain, rinse if you want and pop them into the fridge. The vinegar kills mold spores and bacteria on the surface of the fruit, and voila! Raspberries will last a week or more, strawberries can last up to two weeks without mold.

I haven't tried this yet (waiting for the price of raspberries to come down in fact) but it seems very logical. Vinegar's acidity does kill or diminsh the effects of mold. Apple cider vinegar in particular has many beneficial uses, from a good spring tonic to relief of arthritis. D.C. JARVIS M.D. has written several books describing these benefits. The one on Folk Medicine I found particularly useful over the past 45 years.

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