Washing Away Food Waste

Now is a good time to keep food fresher longer.

I Bought It, Now What?: How to Wash and Store Produce, Waste Less and Save Money is a title that speaks to anybody who's pulled a soggy bagged salad from the refrigerator or tossed potatoes covered with sprouting eyes into the trash.

With clear and detailed directions, author Amy Cross shares step-by-step how to keep the 25 most common pieces of fresh produce from going bad, extending the life of our fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator from days to weeks.

Even if you aren't concerned that more than a third of the food produced in the US goes to waste (and the same is true for Canada), you must have noticed how high gas prices have inflated the price of food in recent months. This book offers a way to get more out of food we buy while driving to the grocery store less often. Win-win.

Cross is a savvy user of social media, and says that she was inspired to write the book when her method of preserving store-bought strawberries went viral. The method is simple in that it involves washing items in a solution of vinegar and water and storing them in glass jars. But there are many details that make the method actually work for different foods, and the author spells them all out. She's since written a summer edition which expands her instructions to include common summer fruits and vegetables, such as garden tomatoes, watermelon, and corn on the cob.

Cross' writing follows same friendly conversational style as her blog, and while her self-published text would benefit from professional editing, her sincerity shines through.