We Know Orange Juice Purchases Have Declined for Our Household

OJ purchases at a 15 year low due to competitive products and higher costs.

Save Money When Buying Fruit

Americans are reported to throw away about forty percent of food annually.  That’s not far off from throwing away half of our food.  As we mentioned last week, some of this may be due to confusion when differentiating between what is safe and unsafe to eat.

If you buy fruit during your weekly grocery trip, like we do, you have a lot of fruit around the house.  Fruit is great for snacking and to keep you healthy.  It’s, also, great for enhancing meals, like mango salsa with homemade tacos or a pear chutney over a pork loin roast.  Yum!

 

So, if you’re a fruit-eater, you know it’s sometimes difficult to eat your fruit before it spoils.  Here’s a solution.

When we get home from the grocery store, we put all of our fruit in a freshly cleaned sink.  Then we mix a combination of one part white vinegar and three parts water.  We let the fruit soak for about ten minutes, drain the sink and let the fruit dry.  Then, depending on the type of fruit, we store it in a fruit bowl on our counter or in our fridge. 

 

The water-vinegar mixture kills about 98% of the bacteria on fruit.  This slows down the spoiling process and helps fruit last up to a week or more after getting it home.  Before it’s time to eat the fruit, we’ll rinse it off again. 

This means we don’t waste our fruit, which saves us money or gets us a better return on our fruit investment.

Save Money by Not Confusing "Sell By" Dates with "Expiration" Dates

The average American family of four throws out about $1,560 worth of food that's likely still good to eat.  With a household income of $50,000, that's a 3% raise.