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Storing Your
Produce
Optimizing storage of produce
when you get it home
is not as easy as it seems. There are a number of
storage conditions that can affect the storage life of
produce, including temperature, humidity and, of
course, atmospheric ethylene. It seems that each
variety has its own set of preferences.
(1) Store in the
refrigerator or on the countertop
Generally we think that keeping produce in the
refrigerator is going to
improve storage life. For one thing, the effect
of ethylene on aging is certainly
slowed by the cold. But it is easy to think of
exceptions to this assumption.
For example, a potato tends to convert its
starch to sugar if stored too
cold; an eggplant develops brown spots if
stored in the refrigerator. But,
what about cucumbers - or bell peppers –
or watermelon? Check the
UC Davis reference sheet to
see if you guessed right.
(2) Store in the proper poly bag or in
the open (lower humidity
and allow for oxygen)
For those varieties that keep better in high
humidity, it makes sense to store
them in a produce bag after purchase. If the
humidity stays too high, you can
get some interesting, if not attractive,
biological activity. Furthermore,
produce is alive, so it must be allowed to
breath. The poly bags that the
grocery store supplies is not a good choice for
storage because it can keep
humidity too high and excludes oxygen. Produce
suffocates when stored in
these bags. They are provided for transport
and are not intended for
storage. There are produce bags on the market
that are permeable
to oxygen and ethylene, while maintaining
proper humidity that
some produce needs.
(3) Have a low ethylene atmosphere.
If the produce is ripe, keeping it away from
ethylene helps
maintain freshness.
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Each variety of produce has its own ethylene response profile. Some are
ethylene emitters, some
are damaged by it, and some are both. The only way to
be sure that you are not storing incompatible
varieties together is to eliminate the ethylene
entirely!
The refrigerator may be good at maintaining a
storage temperature and humidity for produce that
should be stored there. But, it creates a problem for
any ethylene sensitive produce. It traps the ethylene
generated by any thing in the refrigerator, allowing it
to accumulate to damaging levels. Refrigerators are
designed to force its cool air to all parts of the box.
So, the produce drawers are not really isolated from
each other. As a result storing in different drawers is
only marginally effective.
If you use the produce bags, part of their function
is to prevent ethylene buildup around its contents by
allowing the ethylene out of the bag. But that leaves
the rest of the refrigerator with the accumulating
ethylene. The answer is to remove all ethylene as it is
generated.
Hence, the Ethylene Gas Guardian!!
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