This is why you should bring a whole bunch of reusable bags when you go grocery shopping
Do you usually prefer to do (almost) all your grocery shopping for the week in one go? Or do you simply stroll to the market or the supermarket when you’ve decided what you want to eat that day? In the first case, you probably already bring several bags, but there’s actually a better way to organise those bags than stuffing everything in together at random.
And even if you’re only shopping for a few days, it may be wise to bring several bags. Why? Read these tips on how you can help ensure food safety and prevent waste yourself:
Win-win
In AD, various experts explain how a few simple steps can help protect you from food poisoning and also keep your fresh products fresh for longer. Here’s a little spoiler: pay attention to your route through the supermarket, and bring a few different bags. Those cool bags by the freezer section? They may well come in handy.
Race to the fridge
Kathelijn van Elk is impact manager at Too Good To Go, an app that lets you buy leftover food at heavily reduced prices near you. She explains in the newspaper that you want chilled products to spend as little time as possible out of refrigeration before you can put them away at home. So pick those up last. And that cool bag comes in handy for them too—not just for the ice creams. It’s also useful to have different bags, says Marcel Zwietering, professor of food microbiology at Wageningen University & Research, and to use them separately for different product categories. Chilled or not; urgent or tranquilo. That way, once you’re home, you can immediately put everything that belongs in the fridge or freezer away in one go, without having to dig the salmon out from underneath the bags of Haribo.
Watch out for damage
A spokesperson for the Netherlands Nutrition Centre also adds her two cents to the safety bag. Lolkje de Vries advises you to pay close attention, especially with chilled products, to whether the packaging is damaged. Plastic meat or fish packaging, in particular, can develop tears quite easily. If air gets in, the product can spoil faster, and any liquid that leaks out can end up on other food.
Best-before or use-by
Of course, it’s also important to pay attention to the use-by date (this one is really no joke) and the best-before date, and therefore to the difference between these use-by and best-before dates. With the latter, a certain quality is guaranteed until that date, but you can still eat the product afterwards. Here you can read the exact difference between best-before and use-by dates again.
A crying shame
According to Van Elk, ten percent of food waste in Europe is related to use-by and best-before dates, and these tips can make a big difference. Here’s to less waste! (Because less waste also means more food for you ?)
Image: Albert Heijn
Also read:
- This young farmer is going crazy over the absurd food waste caused by best-before dates
- This is how you defrost salmon
- 12 products you should never put in the fridge
Source: AD
