Buying Fruits & Veggies At The Grocery Store - What You Need To Know

place city family what is up it is art and Bobby back in the grocery store the produce section to be more concise because I don't wanted to make a video here for a long time and given the fact that we still have a few more days of permission from Whole Foods to film on their grocery store we might as well do it now because filming here and any other grocery store is Waldo city and it's off-limits but I thought it'd be fun to kind of take you around the produce section and show you how I shop here give you some tips on buying fresh produce show you a couple hacks that'll preserve some of your fresh produce like parsley much longer and just give you some general do's and don'ts in the produce section because man there's nothing I love better than buying fresh produce but there's nothing I hate more than wasting it and seeing go to spoil without eating it so before we get into the produce section you know the drill like subscribe share all those good things but the most important thing is there's a bell icon right below the video you're going to want to enable all notifications because for this month of January we have six to seven videos going live we have a live stream every Friday night where we make a recipe from start to finish and it's a lot of fun and you don't want to miss out all right let's start out on something really important see the word organic strawberries here right see this right here USDA Organic so when you guys see that that means that this produce these strawberries was not sprayed with any pesticides right wrong this is misnomer number one a lot of people think just because it says USDA Organic it's not sprayed it is sprayed they're always great if you don't spray a crop it's gonna die you're gonna lose it and farmers are gonna lose their livelihood the thing is it has to be sprayed with USDA approved pesticides or herbicides that means it is more stringent right it's still better for you and you can't use the nasty roundup from Monsanto but they still are spraying I've talked to some local farmers at the farmers markets during the summer and they said it's kind of a good thing bad thing because even though they are safer USDA Organic approve sprays sometimes they're not as effective so they have to spray a lot more that might not be bad for the strawberry per se but that runs off into the soil into the water system and gets carried over to other crops so not always better but still way better than conventional because conventional is sprayed like crazy and when you're talking about nasty stuff like roundup you don't want that in your body all right I want to show you the coolest hack ever want to come to fresh parsley and cilantro come over here I buy one bunch of parsley every 10 days or so but this is a smallest one but it's actually not a bad deal here at Whole Foods check this out it's a buck 49 for an organic Italian bunch of parsley no see the word Italian I like that because look at this these are the Italian flat-leaf this is what most cooks and chefs and restaurants cook with it's a tender leave if you compare it to this this is the parsley that I grew up with used to go to our restaurant and that 80s or a steakhouse they give you curly parsley like this I don't like this for culinary purposes it's more just for garnishes imagine looking at a steak they put that sprig of parsley on the plate that's the stuff I always buy organic flat leaf parsley because it would be a member of the Dirty Dozen it's highly spray that grows in the ground and it has no natural defense to it but I don't like wasting money so even though it 150 is not a bad deal for organic car sleep here's what you do as soon as you get home cut a half an inch off the bottom of the stems wash the parsley shake it really dry Pat it with a towel and fill up a jar or a mason jar with about two to three inches of cold water put the parsley in there and then take this bag the bag that you took it home with put it over the top stored in your fridge change the water every three to four days and you guys no joke this will last you up to 14 days yes 14 days which is great because normally after five or six days it can go moldy or starts going yellow I tell people on the Flav City Instagram this all the time they do it it works like a charm also works for cilantro doesn't really work well for a mint and stuff like that but you guys check it out and by the way if you're not following me on the Flav City Instagram definitely check me out on there we're doing story so what we make every night for dinner and it's a lot of fun so I'm gonna take that home with me let's move on to kale I love kale I don't just love because it's a hipster ingredients a superfood I love it cuz it's tasty but it also is a superfood it's high in vitamin A C and K but there's a few options here when it comes to kale and you really want to be careful what you're looking at so this is one that a lot of restaurants use it green kale let's see how curly and almost tough it is this is the kale I never buy because it's very very tough if you try to put this into a salad it's gonna stay almost like a rubbery and be very very hard to chew so instead I always get this kale this is lacinato kale but look at the leaves here they're way more tender they're way more soft and supple and this my friends will make a much better salad because it's so much easier to finesse it down into a soft salad you can actually massage this a little bit after you chop it and it gets really really soft here's the deal this is not just called lacinato kale it's the most confusing thing ever it's called dinosaur kale black kale Tuscan kale and lacinato kale but I love this stuff you have to buy it organic why kale is undone Dirty Dozen it's not just on the Dirty Dozen it's at the top of the list of the Dirty Dozen with spinach kale and spinach by weight are the dirtiest of the dirty dozen so you really really want to buy organic and check it out this is actually not a bad price when Amazon bought Whole Foods they lowered the price $1.99 for a large bunch of kale is not bad at all but what you don't want to do is buy it in the bag let me show you and here's why I don't want to buy the bag number one it's the curly green kale but number two count them one two three four five six seven eight dozens and dozens of stalks I don't love this stuff because number one it's more expensive right I'm always looking out for your in my pocketbook number two you cannot eat the stalks of the kale they're fibrous and tough and you buy these things they're not only in here but they're usually pieces that have leaves attached to them so you have to do the work of separating them you don't want that you guys it's much more economical to buy the bunch and stay away from the stalks hold me don't play that game here's something interesting come over here so we often times see bagged lettuce is which I typically don't buy except for something I'll show you in the meantime in a second triple washed so what does that really mean if it's triple washed does that mean you don't have to wash it at home and the answer is yes it's actually washed initially to get rid of debris from the field and then two more times to clean so you don't have to clean this at home but when they actually triple wash it they do use a cleaning agent that can be usually either be bleach or hydrogen peroxide we're talking about in very very little diluted amounts but I'm not comfortable with that I'd rather just buy a big thing of romaine and shop it myself but I just didn't wanna let you know if it does say triple wash you don't have to wash it at home now the only actual lettuce I buy in the containers is this right here check it out look at the price it's the organic baby spinach let me talk about this before you have to buy organic for baby spinach because that's what the dirtiest of the dirty doesn't but here's the price right here it's $4.99 look at this one for a power and you guys this is one of the best prices around I've gone to many a grocery stores with y'all and surprising enough the 365 Whole Foods brand is the cheapest on the market it's pretty much the same price as Costco you go to Aldi you get a target the organic spinach is way more one thing I find really interesting about all deep as chief is their most of their stuff is there the produce is fish especially the organic produce it Aldi is not a very good deal this is a great deal and it's got a ton of nutrition in here do not buy baby kr baby spinach or spinach thinking it has a lot of iron it doesn't have a lot of iron it has a lot of other nutrients in here a man I love this stuff it's so darn good one more thing about bagged salad mixes if you have an option between a bag that is puffy and area like this and a bag that is skinny it doesn't have so much air like that get the skinnier one because as the lettuce get older it lets off natural gases that means it is old and it's filling up the bag and you can see here look it's getting really sweaty in there whereas this bag is dry as can be this bag is tin this bag is pretty fat so the debt another dates are actually surprisingly the same so my guess is this was stored in a more hot environment and aged much quicker so just something to keep in mind when you're buying bagged salads skinnier is better which is kind of ironic as you're eating salad you might want to get skinnier too we have a whole video about clean 15 vs. Dirty Dozen but since we're here and we have access I just want to highlight a couple of things that I find really interesting you're talking about vegetables like asparagus or cauliflower for cabbage or even the broccoli over there these are actually clean 15 vegetables you don't have to splurge and get organic because all these vegetables share one very common characteristic they have compounds in here that are natural pest deterrents and because of that they don't have to spray them too much which is really interesting because I would think of something like cabbage which is a cruciferous vegetable as growing pretty much on the ground and being dirty but because of that special compound it makes it clean and they only have a few pesticides or herbicides they found on here in the first place so hey anytime you can save money I'm all about that I'll put the full list of clean 15 vs. Dirty Dozen vegetables in the description box and you could also check out the video after this one too I wanted to come over here to the freezer section really quick because I have no problem buying some vegetables frozen like corn peas or spinach it's good to have those in the freezer because those are picked at ripe weakness and frozen immediately and that you can't get fresh peas in the winter the thing is you have to be careful of produce frozen bags that have been frozen thawed and refrozen so what do I mean check this out see all your bags get up close and personal with your bags if it feels chunky and clumpy that's a telltale sign this bag has been frozen thawed and then refrozen but this is good if you can feel it it could be my hands right now you can see all the beans are separate that's really important because if it thaws and refreezes you lose natural gases it'll dry out and it's not good so just keep that in mind also you don't have to my organic green beans or green peas because when they grow in that pod they're protected from a lot of the spray but it's something I thought about when I saw that so just keep that in your mind about frozen vegetables feel long touch them love them caress them they will love you back I know there's cheaper places to buy avocados in Whole Foods but I don't know what's been going on here lately they've been having awesome sales and five for five dollars of large avocados is a great deal and here's a bonus that I think I'm buying it here is that 99.9% of the avocados I've out here are awesome they're creamy they're not black inside sometimes you get them and they look good but they're actually hard and watery that never happens here so I don't know they must get really good avocados but they're consistently good even though they might be a little more expensive than other grocery stores I don't mind paying a slight premium if I know they're gonna be primo avocados just one thing I never do is buy the pre-made guacamole if you look at the price of $9.99 per pound it's like my wallet cannot handle that I must rather mash some avocados at home and do it myself I'm gonna burn cash like that I'm sorry I can't come to the produce section and not show you two of my all-time favorite things whenever you see me cooking I live or on Instagram I always use those red finger peppers here's where I get them they're always here at Whole Foods you can get them in Asian markets - but many other stores don't have them and I love them because they're not too spicy it's more fruity with a little spice and even though it's nine dollars a pound you just need a couple at a time they're great for garnishing because they add color and they add a little bit of poppy heat and then right here is something you can't find it in a lot of grocery stores it's fresh turmeric root this is what I used to use this is what I use to make my immune system boosting tea it is a bit pricey at eight dollars a pound but a little bit goes a long way all you have to do is grate it into fresh sauces or IRA grate it into my tea once again Asian markets will always have this kind of stuff but in most other markets you're not gonna find it right so very very cool here our family that is it there's my guide to buying produce what to look for what to avoid and why I hope it helps you out but let me know what kind of videos you want to see down below in the description box leave a comment these videos are all about you guys also all about you guys is the amazing support we've got this month this channel is taking off prime to hit 1 million pretty soon we love it keep spreading the love keep sharing we got 2 videos below us right now but my main man art and I will see you very soon until then we say into like we always do hashtag keep on cooking mad love and peace

Channel: FlavCity with Bobby Parrish

Views: 292,908

Rating: 4.9488621 out of 5

Keywords: fresh produce, produce, fresh, vegetables, fruit, fruits, fresh vegetables, food storage, organic produce, organic produce vs conventional, organic food, organic, pesticides, organic foods, gmo, organic vegetables, shop with me, haul, shopping, grocery haul, flavcity, bobby parrish

Id: PImGM4_o61o

Length: 13min 13sec (793 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020