Love Smoothies’ Guide on How to Reduce Food Waste
One of our missions here at Love Smoothies HQ is to reduce food waste as well as making your life easier in the process. That’s why we came up with our idea for little bags of pre-portioned frozen fruit and veg, these bags mean no more chopping, peeling, wasted brown bits or mess, and a smoothie in seconds (60 from sachet to cup to be precise!). But how to reduce food waste for the rest of your fresh fruit and veg? Try these tips below to keep your bananas, avocados and celery fresher for longer…
How to Make Bananas Last Longer?
To make your bananas last longer you should keep them out of the fridge and away from other fruits. Ethylene gas is released by foods such as apples and pears, causing bananas to ripen faster. Once bananas are ripe they then also produce ethylene gas which ripens other fruit.
What if Your Bananas are too ripe?
If your bananas are too ripe, peel them and freeze them. You can then add them to our smoothies for extra creaminess and sweetness!).
Want easy banana smoothies? – Checkout out Blueberry Thrill or Strawberry Split
Tips on Keeping Avocados Fresh For Longer
Want some tips on how to turn those lovely avocados from going from hard to mush in the blink of an eye? Store them at room temperature to ripen, and once they are ripe, pop them in the fridge. This process can help keep avocados fresher for longer.
Make Avocados Ripen Super Fast
If you want avocados to ripen faster, place them in a paper bag with an apple or banana. We mentioned earlier when explaining how to make bananas last longer that some fruits release Ethylene gas.
Might be of interest – what is ethylene gas?
Keeping Cut Avocados Fresh
For cut avocados, leave the stone in, wrap them tightly in cling wrap and store them in the fridge. Placing them in an air-tight container also works well.
Freezing Your Avocados
To freeze avocado, mash or puree the flesh with a little lemon juice and then freeze in a small container, bag or ice cube tray. Then pop a few pieces in with one of our smoothies – try Blueberry Thrill, or ramp the avo up in Avo-Go-Go.
How to Keep Celery Fresh
Celery is rich in vitamins and minerals with a low glycemic index, but can be hard to keep fresh if not looked after properly. Here are some quick tips on how to keep celery fresher for longer. If you have a whole bunch of celery, wrap the root end of the celery in a paper towel, place the whole celery in a ziplock bag and squeeze out the excess air.
Keeping Chopped Celery Fresh
If you want to keep chopped celery fresh, place it in an airtight container lined with a paper towel. Make sure you save the base of the celery when you are cutting it as you can use the base to regrow more celery.
Revive Your Celery
You can stand the base of a bunch of celery in water to help revive it if it has gone limp. However, this is the worst way to store celery as it absorbs so much water that it causes the cells to break down and the stalks disintegrate.
What to do With Your Celery
Throw a few pieces into one of our veggie smoothies (Kale Kick, Spinach to Win It) for a little extra taste and some fibre. Yum!
Still Struggling to Reduce Your Food Waste?
If you still can’t make your bananas last longer, keep your avocados fresh or stop your celery going limp there is always Love Struck's pre-portioned frozen fruit and veg. Not only do they help reduce food waste they’re also quick, easy and tasty, view all our drinks.