Berry Safety
Harvest season and safety.
Keeping Berries Fresh
We are in the middle of harvest season with peaches, raspberries, blackberries and all other types of fruit available either in our gardens or from local farms. Sadly strawberry and blueberry season is long in the past here in NJ.
Berries have a brief shelf life. I eat them as soon as I have them because; it is my experience, that they will last less than a week at peak flavor and texture. If I buy them from the store, already picked, I store them in the fridge and rinse as I go.
If you are picking your own, there are some good tips on the internet. This is good advice for blackberries and a vinegar wash followed by a cold water rinse and thorough, careful drying may help with keeping strawberries and blueberries longer.
Let me know in the comments how you eat your fresh berries.
Berry Preservation
If you have a lot of berries, think about preserving them. I find freezing berries the easiest, either on cookies sheets in my freezer. Once frozen, I put them into bags, so I can grab a handful for dessert or to add to my smoothies.
For peaches I stew them on the stove and freeze the stewed peaches. This also works for berries. I store them in bags so that I can pull out a small serving for smoothies, or larger servings so I can have summer crumbles in the middle of winter.
I love frozen fruit to add to my breakfast, which I will cook up with oatmeal on the coldest days of the year.
Do you eat frozen berries? Let me know in the comments your favorite way to use frozen berries?
Freezing for Preservation
Freezing is a preservation method that works by slowing down chemical reactions, including those in bacteria. Once the food is back to room temperature, any bacteria present will start reproducing again.
Commercial frozen fruits are uncooked or manufacturers may blanch them to reduce enzyme reactions. Blanching is a mild heat treatment, where we submerge vegetables briefly in boiling water and quickly transferred to ice water. This stops enzymes and may kill bacteria on the surface. However, it is insufficient heat to be a critical control step for pathogens.
Berry Safety
When using commercially frozen berries, I will heat them, rather than using them raw as there has been recent outbreaks of hepatitis A found in frozen berries. Since 2011 there have been three hepatitis A outbreaks linked to frozen berries.
To help with produce safety, the FDA is developing a food safety prevention strategy to enhance the safety of fresh and frozen berries. They are still at the research stage and gathering information and are collecting and testing frozen berries to test for norovirus and hepatitis A. Once the FDA understands the prevalence of these viruses in strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, they shall identify measures to limit or prevent contamination from occurring, suggest approaches to re-enforce control measures and their application, and recommend where we need additional research.
FDA Food Safety Quiz
Here is a fun thing to try during the US East coast heatwave. The FDA has a quiz to help us understand food safety around ready-to-cook food.
This quiz reinforces that freezing does not make food safe.
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Who is Cathy Davies?
I write about the intersection of food science and food systems with an emphasis on food safety, food justice and resilience. I am concerned that climate disasters and changing weather patterns are affecting our ability to eat healthy, nutritious food.
I run a food safety consultancy, Food Safety Mid Atlantic, supporting specialty food businesses with their food safety plans and programs. If you are interested in learning more about my consulting services, please schedule a free call.
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ooooh I love popping frozen berries in my overnight oats right before I eat them. so yummy!