What to Do With Fruits and Veggies That Are Going Bad
One of the biggest struggles when it comes to college, regardless of whether or not you live on or off campus, is grocery shopping for one. It doesn’t matter if you live by yourself or how many roommates you have, but college students generally have a difficult time buying groceries for one person because they are packaged for groups of three to four (families). For example, if you want to buy yourself some grapes (and the rest of your roommates despise grapes), they’ll come in a huge bag. As much as you’ll tell yourself that you’ll finish that whole bag of grapes before they all go bad, it’s highly likely that you may not.
So what do you do with fruits and veggies that are going bad? The are endless answers to this question because there are so many things that you can do – but here are a few:
Make a smoothie
If you have berries – anything from strawberries and raspberries to blueberries and blackberries – you can turn them into a smoothie. Even bananas, think about all of the delicious possibilities. Look up a recipe online for the fruits that you have – keep in mind that you don’t always have to have the exact amount of fruit that is in the recipe. If you have too little banana for the given recipe, adjust the ingredients accordingly or add an extra spoon of sugar. This is where improvisation comes into play.
Treat yourself to a face mask
According to Dr. Oz, you can actually turn bananas into a replenishing face mask. Bananas are actually great for hydrating your skin because of the moisture from potassium, as well as Vitamins C and E. This is a cheaper alternative to buying a face mask from the store, and the other pro is that it is indeed an all-natural alternative. A common recipe for a banana facemask is a combination of banana, honey, and orange peels.
You can also create face masks from vegetables. Common store-bought face masks are made from cucumbers and avocados. These are also some vegetables that you can use for a face mask if you know they are about to go bad!
Make jams or marmalades
This one can be applicable to all kinds of fruits – apricots, plums, apples, peaches, berries of sorts, and so on. Making jams and marmalades from real fruits at home, despite there still being sugar, is much healthier (and typically much yummier) than buying jams and marmalades from stores. By replacing sugar with honey, in many of these recipes, you can still get the factor of sweetness but in a healthier and more natural way.
Make homemade frozen yogurt
This one is super easy! You can make all kinds of combinations of frozen yogurt. For example, if you have strawberries and bananas that are about to go bad, blend up as many of the fruits as you have (if possible, a relatively even ratio – so three cups of strawberries mean three cups of bananas). Mix this with plain yogurt, add a teensy bit of sugar, and freeze it until it’s the same texture and consistency as frozen yogurt. This is a great way to eat your fruit without having to worry about it going bad too because it’ll be kept in the freezer for whenever you’re craving a sweet treat.
Clean your kitchen
Many all-natural, homemade cleaning products have lemon as a prime ingredient. For instance, a good way to get rid of the stench in your garbage disposal is by cutting up a lemon into smaller slices and tossing it down the garbage disposal.
Make a deep conditioning treatment
Some vegetables, such as avocados, can be used to create homemade deep conditioning treatments for your hair. According to the Home Remedy Shop, all you need is an avocado, honey, coconut oil, aloe vera juice, and lemon juice (all of which are commonly found in the average household).
Replant them!
Many times, fruits and vegetables that are going bad can just be replanted in your own backyard. What better way to make up for the lost money on a fruit gone bad than by replanting your own! It’s a great way to learn how to take care of plants of your own if you ever intend to have a fruit, vegetable, or herb garden. This is especially applicable to root vegetables such as potatoes. People tend to shy away from potatoes as soon as the outside starts to look funny, but that usually means that it’s just ready to grow another potato. It will take a little bit of patience, but appropriately planting the seeds from many of your fruits and vegetables that can no longer be eaten can alternatively save you a good chunk of money and give you a new kind of experience.
Who said you can’t still utilize all the great things that fruits and vegetables have to offer even after they start to go bad?