BY SUSAN / JUN 19, 2018 / LEAVE A COMMENT
I detest throwing food away, especially when it comes to produce. For this reason, I recently purchased a few specialty containers made by Rubbermaid. They are designed to allow ethylene gases to escape, prolonging the freshness of the items within. To see if the containers did all they proclaimed to, I decided to put them to the test.
Rubbermaid FreshWorks Produce Saver Food Storage Containers, Set of 4
I used fresh strawberries, as they tend to go bad particularly fast in the refrigerator. I started with a quart of fresh unwashed strawberries and placed half of them inside the special produce-saving container. The other half I left in the original clear plastic disposable container. I wanted to see if the berries stayed fresher longer in the containers than if they were just left alone. Let’s see what happened.
The Results
After 24 hours, not much change could be seen in any of the berries. They were all still firm and fresh.
Day 2: the strawberries in the produce container showed no change. The strawberries in the original container still looked pretty good, with some minor discoloration.
Day 3: after three days in the refrigerator the strawberries in the produce container were still looking very good. The others were starting to show signs of deterioration.
Ok, so some of us would have gobbled up these strawberries already, but here is how they looked after 7 days in the refrigerator.
Day 7: the berries in the original container are mushy and discolored. I would not be using these in my Strawberry Cream Cheese Trifle! However, the others had begun to show some minor discoloration, but still good enough to eat
Conclusion
The Freshworks container by Rubbermaid was definitely worth the purchase price as it really did keep the berries fresher for a longer period of time.
Here is how mushrooms looked after 7 days in the FreshWorks container, still good enough to use in my Florentine Scramble.
