A weapon for the War on Waste

Latest post from MARKSVEGPLOT – a blog about food and gardening in England”

Many of you will be very aware of the current strong interest in the avoidance of food waste, as promoted by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall and others. Let’s avoid today the subjects of over-production, excessive interest in the cosmetic qualities of vegetables, or the evils of supermarket ethics. I want to publicise one method of keeping fruit and vegetables in good condition for longer, which might help some people to keep, and therefore use, produce that might otherwise have been consigned to the compost bin. The “Stayfresh” bag.

Here in the UK there are several brands available, but the ones we use are made by Lakeland and are available either via the internet or from any of their many high street shops. As you can see here the Lakeland ones are officially called “stayfresh longer” bags.

The science of the bags is explained on the back of the packs:

The bags come in a range of sizes, but the ones we find most useful are the Medium (10″ x 15″) and Large (11″ x 18″).

The large ones are particularly useful for long vegetables like Leeks, Celery and Runner Beans.

It doesn’t say on the packs how long these bags are supposed to last, or if multiple uses are recommended, but for what it’s worth we wash them and re-use them several times and they still seem to perform well. Even when the preservative “Japanese stone powder” eventually fades, their durable plastic composition makes these bags ideal for storing vegetables and fruit. If nothing else, they help prevent soil etc from your veg contaminating the fridge!

By the way, the brightly-coloured plastic clip fasteners, called “Clippits” are also available from Lakeland.

Here we are – some bags in actual use…

This post is not a sponsored one. I just happen to think these are good products. We find that fruit and vegetables stored in them lasts about twice as long as it otherwise would.

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