Few things are as frustrating as throwing away produce because you couldn't eat it fast enough. Luckily, Carleigh Bodrug, author of a New York Times bestselling cookbook, recently lettuce in on a food waste hack that keeps lettuce fresh for up to a whole month.
In a popular Instagram Reel now viewed almost 15 million times, Bodrug outlines exactly how to stop your leafy greens from getting smelly, slimy, and spoiled.
It's easy to get intimidated by some overly-complicated food hacks, but romaine calm; this one is pretty straightforward.
Bodrug starts the video by washing the head of lettuce and chopping it up into small pieces. After that, she uses a salad spinner to dry it, aiming to remove all excess moisture, which can cause lettuce to rot more quickly.
Once the greens are dry, she puts them into a glass jar and shoves a cloth towel on top to get rid of even more excess moisture. Bodrug notes that paper towels will do if you don't have an extra cloth towel.
She throws the container in the fridge and makes sure to explain that she'll swap out the towel every couple of days.
The post, now with roughly 340,000 likes, sparked a ton of interest and a decent amount of lettuce slander. One viewer jokingly commented, "Now I can ignore the lettuce in my fridge even longer."
Jokes aside, food waste is a huge problem in America. On average, families of four throw away about $1,600 worth of produce every year.
Besides costing a serious chunk of change, discarded food ends up rotting in landfills and producing planet-heating methane gas.
Using a variety of different food hacks can help your wallet and the planet. This one is just the tip of the iceberg.
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