TikTok is full of ideas on how to keep them fresher for longer.
And some of these techniques are so unusual that ETX Daily Up checked them out with Interfel, France’s interprofessional organisation for fresh fruit and vegetables, to find out if they really are bone fide hacks.
Should you store tomatoes upside down to keep them fresher for longer?
The video lasts only a few seconds. The tone seems ironic. So much so that you can’t help but wonder about the credibility of this advice.
TikToker @jerryjamesstone – who posts various tips to reduce food waste – turns a tomato upside down to keep it fresher for longer. And that’s it!
That’s it? It sounds crazy, but the trick is more or less confirmed by Interfel, on one condition.
“The advice could perhaps be of interest if the tomatoes have no stalk. Indeed, the stalk ensures their freshness because they continue to draw sap from it, even after harvesting, but only for a short period,” explains José Loureiro, a dietician for the professional association.
To optimise this tip, it is also important to choose your tomatoes carefully when buying them, checking for softness, firmness, density, smell and shine.
In any case, tomatoes should never be kept in the refrigerator.
“The cold neutralises their aroma and flavour. They can be kept for about three to four days in a fruit basket. After that, there will be a loss of water, especially through the stalk,” says the health professional.
Can you wrap banana stems with paper to stop them ripening too quickly?
Dr Erin Carter, who shares her health tips on a dedicated TikTok account, is all smiles as she shakes a bunch of bananas.
In a very short video, she performs a simple manoeuvre that the rheumatologist presents as the fool-proof secret to prevent bananas from ripening too quickly.
Hard to believe… And yet, enveloping their stems with cellophane or aluminium will “limit the entry of ethylene and thus slow down the ripening of the fruit,” reveals the Interfel dietician.
Indeed, the expert reminds us that the banana is a climacteric fruit, which means that it ripens after picking.
And the health professional has some advice to add for promoting preservation: “good ventilation, a temperature between 20°C and 25°C, and keeping them away from other climacteric fruits also seems necessary to me.”
Can vegetables be stored in water in the fridge for optimal freshness?
From peppers and Brussels sprouts to celery, lemons, cauliflower and broccoli, a plethora of TikTok videos extol the virtues of storing produce in water in the fridge.
Some people plunge these items directly into a jar filled with water, while other TikTokers choose to cut the vegetables into sections and preserve them in water.
This alleged trick has gone so viral that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spoke out last May to warn that this preservation technique should be avoided. It said that any bacteria on the skin of avocados can multiply in water.
A spokesperson even told Newsweek that listeria monocytogenes could potentially infiltrate the flesh of the fruit within two weeks.
At the time, the aforementioned Dr Erin Carter posted a video on the subject to warn the TikTok community about this bad idea.
Unfortunately, avocado is not the only product being kept this way. Other TikTokers follow the recommendations of the Canadian organisation Equiterre, which advises storing fresh herbs and broccoli like a bunch of flowers.
On this point, opinions differ. “I am not convinced by these methods. It is rather the use of the refrigerator that seems essential to me. Broccoli and fresh herbs can be kept for three to five days in the refrigerator’s crisper,” says dietician José Loureiro.