🍎🍌🍒Useful Fruit & Veggie Hacks🍅🌽🍊

Peel that papery skin from ginger.
Ditch the peeler in favor of a spoon to peel finicky ginger root.

Broccoli is one of the most perishable vegetables yet the average time from harvest to plate is a long 7 weeks. By the time you get it home it's lost 80% of its nutrition. It's best to buy broccoli at a farmer's market and buy whole heads not cut up florets. Store in a perforated plastic bag.

Keep bananas fresher, longer by wrapping the end of the bunch with plastic wrap. Better yet, separate each banana. The plastic wrap blocks ethylene gases from releasing out of the stem, consequently ripening the fruit too fast.

One of the weirdest tips is to tear your lettuce into bite size pieces before storing. This activates it to produce more phytonutrients to protect itself from predators!

To Keep potatoes white:
Cover shredded or diced potatoes with cold water before cooking to prevent the spuds from turning that gross grayish/brown caused by the release of a starch that makes them oxidize.

Sweet onions are the least nutritious type of onion and scallions by far are the most nutrition dense. They contain an unbelievable 140 times more phytonutrients than white onions!

Easily scoop out squash seeds:
Scoop seeds from vegetables such as squash and pumpkin with an ice cream scoop. Because the edge of the scoop is sharp, it cuts through the fibery, gooey stuff inside the squash easier than your hand or a regular spoon.

Pit cherries with ease:
Place cherries on top of an empty beer bottle, one at a time, and use a chopstick to push the pit into the bottle.

Potato skins contain half of a potato's antioxidants, but it also contain most of the pesticides. For this reason, you should consider getting organic.

Remove all cloves from the bulb then whack each clove with the side of a chef’s knife. The skin will fall right off.

Beets are extremely nutritious and have a low glycemic index in spite of their sweetness. This is one of several vegetables that is actually healthier when eaten steamed (not boiled) or roasted instead of raw.

To easily peel citrus fruits:
To avoid mess and frustration, roll citrus fruits and/or microwave them for one minute for easy peeling (just be careful to not burn yourself).

Carrots are hard to breakdown so cooked carrots provide more beta carotene than raw! Buying carrots with the tops left on assures they are reasonably fresh. Carrots that come in a bag can be months old.

Time to ditch the peeler again! Peel a potato in a snap by boiling it and then giving it an ice bath. The skins will separate from the potatoey center and you can pick them right off!

Tomatoes are more nutritious when cooked. Cooking slightly changes the lycopene to a more bioavailable form. Processed tomatoes of any kind – paste, sauce, or diced – are often the most nutritious form, these tomatoes are usually cooked and processed within a few hours of harvest.

Ever had issues prying into a banana? You’re not alone. Instead of wasting precious banana by hacking into the fruit’s stem end with a knife, gently press the bottom together and peel the banana from the bottom up.

Cauliflower comes in bright green, purple and even orange. You might think these are some weird mutants, but actually it's the other way around. The colorful versions are closer to wild forms. The white cauliflower we're used to is a mutant albino.

Raw kale is high in oxalic acid which can lead to muscle weakness, kidney stones, gout and low thyroid function. Lightly steaming first destroys oxalic acid.

Cut an avocado into quarters length-wise to break the fruit from the pit (once it’s down to the last section, you can just pop the pit right off). Run a knife under the tip of skin on each section, then peel it off like a banana.

The asparagus we eat today has barely changed from its wild ancestors and thus is one of the most nutritious vegetables. There was no need to improve on perfection! It is one more veggie best to eat steamed rather than raw. Steaming increases antioxidant availability by 30%.

Use a straw to hull strawberries (it’s fate!). Press a straw through the bottom of a strawberry until it breaks through the top and takes the hull — or the white part of the center of the berry — with it. Remove any remaining leaves with your fingers.

Did you know an avocado contains as much fiber as 2 bowls of oatmeal? If you are ever left with ½ an avocado, keep the pit in place, but put a thin slice of onion on top. Remove the center rings to leave room for the pit, this works great to prevent avocado from browning.

To de-kernel a cob of corn without your teeth:
Use a bundt pan to slice corn kernels off the cob. Place the pointy end of the cob on the center hole of the pan (with the open part of the pan facing up) and gently slice downward. The pan acts double duty as both a stand and a kernel collector.

To clean fruit and veggies without harsh chemicals:
Scrub fresh produce with a mixture of baking soda and water to remove grit, grime, and pesticides.