How often to you buy pre-cut fruit and veggies from the grocery store produce department?

[Anonymous]

Only thing I buy is baby carrots. I also love having sugar snap peas and berries on hand b/c they require no prep and make lunches and snacks easy, so I understand the appeal. I keep trying to prep fruits and veggies over the weekend for the next few days, but I rarely keep in up for more than a week or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand baby carrots. They're slimy and the most nutritious part has been cut or scoured or whatever they do to get it off. Who doesn't have 15 seconda to cut a carrot???

What? Do you not peel your carrots before you eat them anyway?

[Anonymous]

Never, but I buy frozen cut veggies all the freaking time.

[Anonymous]

I buy the pre-cut watermelon and/or pineapple for ds sometimes if it looks ripe. The pre-cut papaya I buy when he's constipated; it does wonders. Veggies and other fruit I do myself.

[Anonymous]

Never. I figure the more times it's been handled before I buy it, the more likely it is to be harboring foodborne illness

[Anonymous]

Not often. Even if it looks ok in the store, I assume it'll only stay good for a couple of days. I shop once a week, so I like to get things that will last longer.

Take broccoli. A full head of broccoli will easily last 5-6 days in the fridge. Even if the edges start to get a little brown, I can trim them off and still use 99% of it. The pre-cut broccoli will start to turn brown on every piece within a few days - no way am I trimming each individual piece!

Canteloupe is another good example. A whole, uncut canteloupe (or the second half, still in its rind, after we've eaten part) will be fine for most of the week until I'm ready to cut and eat it. Once cut, it only lasts a day or two.

So, I will sometimes buy 1-2 precut items to use early in the week, as long as I have enough whole items for the second half of the week. One bag of ready-to-eat lettuce plus a whole head of romaine, for example. And I do like baby carrots, so easy to throw a handful into a lunch box. That's about it. I hardly ever but precut fruit, it spoils too quickly.

One item I do love: the fresh, cooked peeled beets in the refrigerated produce section. I love beets, but they are such a pain to cook! These are much better than the canned variety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only time I really do this is with butternut squash. When I chop up my own butternut squash it is difficult and has a strange reaction with my skin, which I guess isn't too uncommon. Feels like I put superglue on my skin! I gladly pay the surcharge to avoid that!

I always roast butternut squash which eliminates this issue (easily cut the skin off when it's cooked). Have you tried it? I bought pre cut butternut squash one time and it had no flavor. I thought it was because it might have been dried out or something.

Wait.... so you peel if after? How do you roast? Halve it with cut side down? Can it be cubed easily after roasting like this? I have a yummy hash recipe I make that works better in cubes. I have bought pre-cut but it just looks bland before it even gets cooked. I am intrigued by this post roast peeling notion.

[Anonymous]

I just started doing this. Once a week, on the weekends, I buy one of those circular veggie trays that comes with dip. It usually has carrots, celery, broccoli, cucumber, pea pods, and/or cherry tomatoes. I broke down and started doing this b/c I never would cut up all of it myself, and we were just not enough fruits and veggies. Now, when I get home from work, I can slam that down on the table and DD will start munching from it while I cook the dinner. It was a Faustian bargain to spend more $$ in order to get us to eat more fresh veggies.

[Anonymous]

No - but we gravitate towards fruits and veg that need less cutting. When I am going to cut sweet potatoes or squash, I chop A LOT at once and roast a big batch and freeze some. Same with beets - we love them but such a mess to cook often.

WH has squash and beets in the frozen section. The sturdy veggies hold up to freezing pretty well.

For Brussels sprouts - just toss them in the food processor. They are very good shredded and sauted.

[Anonymous]

I don't, because at home I wash any and all fruit and veg before cutting. There's no telling what is on the outside of rinds, etc., and I want it off before it cut it and introduce it to the surface of the cut pieces. I have no idea what's on the hands or knives of the grocery store workers who are handling the produce, either.

[Anonymous]

Watermelon, never really need a giant one in my home for just the three of us.

Mango, to me it's a PITA to cut. And the pit is so large and heavy while you think it may be more expensive for the prefab container, it's actually not that inflated when you account for the fact you are only paying for edible fruit. Not a huge pit.

Pineapple, on par with cost of whole pineapple by weight considering so much of it is cut away so in the same boat as mango.

Kale, it actually keeps much better and for longer in the plastic clamshell containers than any other method I've tried at home with whole stalks. Though I do try to save the clam shells so I can keep my summer kale that I grow myself in there.

I used to get kiwi until I learned how easy to is to scoop the flesh out with a spoon!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not even the $ that bothers me. I think it looks so dried out and unappetizing. It tastes so much better when I cut it up myself, fresh. Like those baby carrots are tasteless to me. Real carrots, peeled and sliced, are far better.

Also they smell like old washcloths to me. Not appealing.

[Anonymous]

Daily

[Anonymous]

The pre-cut fruit at whole foods is cut fresh that morning and they have strict practices. My son is 2 and has been eating various forms of pre cut fruit since 7 months... No food borne illness yet! In fact, just 1 mild cold.

Seems a little alarmist to me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pre-cut fruit at whole foods is cut fresh that morning and they have strict practices. My son is 2 and has been eating various forms of pre cut fruit since 7 months... No food borne illness yet! In fact, just 1 mild cold.

Seems a little alarmist to me?

What does? Not buying pre-cut fruit at supermarkets that don't have strict practices? If that's alarmist, why do you care about strict practices to begin with?