OXO Good Grips Produce Keeper

The OXO Good Grips Produce Keeper is part of OXO's GreenSaver program, which prolongs the life of produce.  Over the years, I have stopped buying much produce because I can never eat it all before it goes bad.  This is obviously terrible for my diet and also inconvenient because I have to go to the store every time I really want some strawberries or salad.  This product sounded like the solution to all of my dietary problems!  So, of course I bought one to test out and will now be buying more in the other sizes.

Here are the facts, in OXO's words:

*Activated carbon filters trap and absorb ethylene gas, slowing down the aging process and keeping produce fresh longer.  The filters are made from coconut husks, making them safe, all-natural and non-toxic.

*The elevated basket lifts produce up and away from the container walls to promote airflow and help prevent rotting.  It can also be removed and used as a colander.

*The adjustable vent on top of each Produce Keeper slides open and closed to maintain optimum humidity levels for different types of produce, keeping them crisp and fresh.

The following video is my introduction to the product and Day 1 of my test to see if the 1.6 Quart Produce Keeper will keep my blueberries fresher than the container they came inside.

The next video is Day 7 of the above mentioned test, as you can see the blueberries in both containers are still pretty fresh, but the blueberries in the original container are beginning to get a little squishy while the ones in the OXO Produce Keeper are still perfectly firm.

Next, we have a video from Day 14.  As you can see in this video, the blueberries in the OXO Good Grips Produce Keeper are visibly more firm and tasted fresher than the blueberries that remained in the store container. 

Day 21:The blueberries that remained in the container from the grocery store are no longer edible.  They are very wrinkled and their size has considerably diminished.  I will no longer taste those blueberries and we are now just waiting to see how long it will take them to actually grow mold or rot.  The blueberries in the OXO Good Grips Produce Keeper are still as firm as the day I bought them... maybe even firmer!  They still taste fresh as well.

Day 28:  The blueberries that remained in the container from the grocery store have officially began growing some sort of mold.  They are wet and pretty gross. The blueberries in the OXO Good Grips Produce Keeper are still firm; however, they are beginning to lose some of their flavor.  They are still yummy, just not as flavorful.  I think I will be throwing out the store container and just continuing the experiment to see how much longer the blueberries in the OXO container last.

Day 35:Unfortunately, this video had some technical difficulties and did not make it to the internet.  I apologize for that!  Luckily, not much changed this week.  At this time, we had already thrown out the blueberries that were in the grocery store container due to the mold that we found on them on day 28.  The blueberries in the OXO Good Grips Produce Keeper are still firm; however, they are beginning to lose some of their flavor. They are still yummy, just not as flavorful.  Not much change.

Day 42:  On this day, we noticed that a few of the blueberries are beginning to get less firm; however, most of the blueberries still look like I just bought them.  Again, the taste is still pretty good, but they are not as flavorful as they were initially.  

Day 49: At this point a few of the blueberries have started to wrinkle, but not many.  However, the blueberries do not have much flavor left.  I would normally have thrown the blueberries out by this point, but the goal was to keep this experiment going until they begin to grow mold or rot.  I will wait one more week...

Day 56:  Alright, this is completely my fault because I really didn't expect this experiment to take quite so long, but I missed a week.  I went on vacation and was not able to check on the blueberries this week.

Day 62:  I chose not to make a video this week because I really did not have much left to say, but I did take a picture.  I am highly impressed with this produce keeper because the blueberries still look almost as if I have just bought them.  They are starting to lose some color, a few are no longer plump, and as I said before they have pretty much lost flavor.  But, really, who expects their blueberries to last over two months?!

CONCLUSION:

The OXO 1.6 Quart Produce Keeper really does keep produce fresher longer.  Compared with blueberries that were left in the plastic container that blueberries are sold in at a grocery store, the blueberries that were stored in the OXO 1.6 Quart Produce Keeper maintained their flavor for about an additional 21 days.  The blueberries in the OXO container had not molded and most remained plump after 62 days, while the ones in the grocery store container took only 14 days to lose their firmness and 28 days to begin to mold.  I would definitely suggest checking out this product and I will definitely be using it myself!