Boston Gal's Open Wallet

I don't know if it is "better," but I have found if I spend the extra money for the pre-cut, I am more likely to eat them and I rarely have any spoil--purely laziness on my part, I know. Then again, I feel better about buying from my local farmer's market--supporting small farmer (not always true anymore though), better for the environment because fewer resources used to get food from farm to market, etc. When did eating fruit get so complicated!?

 

I often run into the same dilemma with salads. It seems like it's cheaper for me to just buy premade salads downtown every day than to buy all the veggies at the store, cut them up and pack salads for my lunches. After a few days, the greens I bought at the store are looking a little slimy and I inevitably end up tossing some out.

 

This might defeat the purpose of buying "farmer's market" fresh, but what I like to do with fruit and veggies is freeze them. With the veggies, I cook them first, then put them in the freezer in single portion size, so all I'm doing is reheating them when I want to eat them. With fruit, I clean and cut them, then freeze them on a cookie sheet, then put them into a baggie, then I just take out as many as I want at a time, for smoothies, etc.

 

I find that many of the pre-cut fruits and veggies in my supermarket are apt to be old and not fresh.
I think it's easier to buy the freshest stuff you can - whether that's at a farm stand, farmers' market, produce stand, or a good supermarket produce section - and as soon as you get home from the supermarket, wash it all and prep some to eat for snacks and lunches. If I have meals in the next two days that use prepped veggies, I do those then too. It doesn't take that long and soon you get used to washing and prepping the veggies as part of the grocery routine.

 

I buy the whole-maybe-not-as-good-looking ones, because I'll just bite off the bad and eat the other half. I don't bother cutting...too much work.

 

For snacks I just stick with stuff I don't need to cut--cherries, grape tomatoes, baby carrots.

 

I only buy the lettuce-mix-in-a-bag thing. Cutting up and mixing different kinds of lettuce is just too time consuming for me and cannot be done on a small scale. On the topic of produce, in my town the grocery store with the least fresh produce is the most expensive -- Whole Foods. They keep spraying the scallions. They start to rot. Also they leave the fruit and tomatoes out way past the point where they're mushy. Their raspberries always have mold or grow it in your refrigerator 3 days after you buy it.

 

What are pre-cut strawberries? Round here I just see strawberries. Not different versions.

 

Pre-cut strawberries are just waht they sound like - they have been washed, the leaf and stems cut off and the berry sliced in half or more. These cut up - ready to eat - pieces are then put into a clear plastic bowl with a lid.

You can also purchase other fruit pieces that have been cut up - watermellon, cantelope, pineapple, mellon - but generally these are mixed together in a bowl.

No syrup is added to these cut up fruits - they are just chilled and in a bowl - so it really is just someone else doing the prep work for you.

 

i've found that pre-cut veggies & fruit isn't as fresh as un-prepped. i've also found lots of gnats - or whatever they're called - in store bought salads. just seeing one ruins the meal for me, so i prefer to not purchase prepped stuff. i eat salad every day, for either lunch or dinner. i do work from home, so it makes it easy to do every day, but if i'm out of the house for lunch, i always make one for dinner. lettuce will last a week if you don't cut it up all at once. just tear the leaves you need for one time off, and leave the rest on the stalk & it should last a whole week. shrimp is the only thing i've decided is worth paying for, shelled & deveined. my time is precious, and it takes about an hour to prep a good amount of shrimp (pound or two) for a large recipe.

 

Bronx Chica...Girl go half and half...it's your money and your health.

 

I find the pre-cut stuff to be tasteless and it usually has something in it to keep it looking "fresh" long after it isn't. My solution is to buy small quantities at a time (you can ask for half a cabbage, for example) and shop more frequently. I know this can be annoying, but buying just enough for two days ensures that you don't overspend and that your vegetables are fresh. I know my parents go for the "more is better" idea and their fridge is usually full of molding veggies and fruits. I lived in England and Japan, and there it is more customary to buy less and more often, and I find that it actually saves me not only money but also time (cleaning out disgusting vegetables every week takes at least as much time as a quick trip to the grocery). It's hard to condition yourself to do it though, since buying large quantities is so ingrained, but with fresh stuff -- less is more.