Preserving Your Produce

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We take great care to quickly cool our head lettuce as it is harvested.  First, we cut at the coolest time of day in small batches.  Next, we hydrocool each head, dunking it in cold water sanitized with peracetic acid.  Finally the head goes into our walk-in cooler to drip dry at or below 40 degrees.

Our lettuce will be delivered to you as near 40 degrees as we can keep it.  Here’s what you should do to keep it fresh as long as Grandma Sheryl, who swears our romaine is as good 30 days after harvest as it is the day it is cut:

1.  Get your lettuce home quickly.  If you can’t do this, put it in a cooler, but don’t let it directly touch ice.

2.  At home, gently separate all leaves from the head into a colander or the basket of a salad spinner.

3.  Submerge the lettuce in very cold water and gently agitate.  Use a bowl full of water, or fill up the lettuce spinner with water, rather than using your sink, which probably has seams that can trap contaminants.  You can also submerge the lettuce in a diluted solution of vinegar in water - see Colorado State University information below.

4.  Drain and repeat until all sediment is removed.

5.  Spin dry or lay out on a clean, lint-free towel and pat dry.

6.  Pack the dried lettuce into a container such as Tupperware or a Ziploc bag.  It is a good idea to put a clean paper towel in the bottom of the container and make sure to replace the paper towel if it gets soggy - a lightly damp towel is okay.

7.  Keep at 33 - 40 degrees Fahrenheit and free of excess water.  
8.  Use promptly and get more!

*** If your lettuce wilts or doesn’t look great, submerge it in very cold water for a minute.

Benefits and Safe Handling of Lettuce from Colorado State University.

So you’ve heard you don’t need to refrigerate farm-fresh eggs?  Wrong!  

All eggs store best in a relatively airtight container between 33 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  These storage conditions minimize transpiration through the shell, preventing both water loss from the egg and the possible movement of contaminants on the outside of the egg through the shell and into the egg.

Always cook eggs thoroughly!  Eating a runny egg is a roll of the dice.  One in 10,000 to 1 in 20,000 eggs can contain salmonella.  Even a perfect-appearing egg from a healthy chicken who has never laid an unhealthy egg before can contain salmonella, introduced into the egg’s contents while still forming inside the chicken.

CDC guidance on eggs.