For best quality frozen fruits and vegetables, follow directions carefully from OSU Extension’s “Freezing Fruits and Vegetables” publication. (Submitted by OSU Extension Service)

Consumers, generally, love a good deal so are willing, even with rising prices, to buy more food than they need. Yet research shows that consumers when they get home with their treasures are still throwing out nearly a third of the food they buy. Those uneaten groceries from a four-person household total about $1,500 a year lost.

There are a few ways to minimize losses. One is to plan your meals ahead and stick to your list. Don’t shop with an empty stomach. Use coupons. Buy generic brands. Or, yield to your over-purchasing passion with a plan to preserve, usually freeze the excess before it overripens, spoils or gets lost in the refrigerator. This strategy, “preserve-the-excess” also works well for community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes delivered every week with what is harvested from a local farm. If you have a vegetable garden, fruit trees or a neighbor with 10 zucchini plants, you’ll need to be able to process at least some of these products quickly throughout the harvesting season.

Color, flavor and nutritive value can be affected by the freshness of the selected produce, method of preparation and packaging and conditions of freezing. Freeze fruits and vegetables when they are at peak ripeness for best quality.

To keep them looking appetizing, light colored fruits should be treated with an anti-darkening solution of citric acid or make your own with six, crushed vitamin C tablets (not gummies) per one gallon of water.

Most vegetables need to be blanched (partially cooked) in boiling water or steam for a short period of time (determined by the type of veggie) to preserve the best quality. Then, chill immediately in ice water before packaging.

Another benefit of blanching is that harmful listeria monocytogenes bacteria that could be present is killed. Fruits and vegetables that are not blanched but are rinsed and rubbed to clean them may still carry listeria bacteria. Small doses are usually harmless when frozen but will revive and start to multiply when thawed. Keep chilled until you need to use or serve it as listeriosis multiply more quickly at room temperatures. Commercially prepared and packed frozen foods must be thawed – or not thawed – and cooked using package directions to assure safety of home cooking. Read and follow the directions. Use a metal-stem digital thermometer to check for doneness and readiness for safe consumption.

Symptoms of listeriosis are diarrhea, fever, vomiting, muscle and headaches, general malaise and weakness. An average of 1,800 illnesses and 250 deaths occur from listeriosis in the United States. The mortality rate is greater than 15% and usually occurs among folks in these at-risk groups: immune-compromised, young children and elderly and pregnant women and neonates.

Package fruits and vegetables in small, made-for-freezer packaging so you thaw just the amount you need. Remove as much air as possible from the packaging. Thawing large quantities, taking what you need and refreezing the rest makes your frozen food more susceptible to freezer-burn. Foods with freezer-burn are safe to eat but have undesirable texture and flavor changes. Cutting off the damaged parts can help improve quality, but sample the food before you serve it.

Chill and freeze fruits and vegetables as quickly as possible. Spread the chilled packages around the freezer on shelves, if possible, for quickest reduction of temperature. Fast freezing reduces the size of ice crystals and risk of freezer-burn. Foods with small ice crystals have increased storage time in the freezer. Then stack like products together or put them in perforated bins in large freezers. Large freezers should be set at 0 degrees F; home processed fruits and veggies will store well for eight to 12 months. If using a freezer in a refrigerator-freezer unit, set the freezer temperature control to the coldest setting; home processed fruits and veggies will be best quality if used within six months.

Perforated or wire bins promote good air circulation for freezing fast. Putting like-items together in bins, like fruits, vegetables, proteins, baked items, etc. helps you find what you need quickly and helps you get the door closed as soon as possible. You can also take the bin out of the freezer to find the foods you want to use in the next few days. Return the bin to the freezer as soon as you have made your selections. Then, put the packages on a tray or in a bowl in the refrigerator to thaw.

Frequent freezer door openings or just opening the freezer to view or “shop” for what you might want raises the temperature in the freezer where some products can begin to thaw. This can cause freezer-burn over time.

For best quality frozen fruits and vegetables, follow directions carefully from OSU Extension’s “Freezing Fruits and Vegetables” publication available at the Crook County Extension office on Lynn Boulevard near the Crook County Fairgrounds. Or you can find our food preservation publications online at beav.es/OSUFoodPreservation, free to view or download.

Your freezer can help you prepare for busy days ahead, parties or unexpected company, too. By planning a steady flow of main dishes, baked goods, desserts and other foods packaged as ingredients to create other convenience foods, you can make good use of your freezer over time.

The benefits of convenience foods include preparing food when you have time. Use your oven more efficiently by baking more than one dish at a time. Avoid waste by freezing leftovers as soon as they are chilled to use as “planned overs.” Prepare special diet foods and baby foods in quantity and freeze in single-serving portions. Save time by doubling or tripling recipes and freezing the extra food in household serving packs or single-serving portions. Making your own convenience foods can save money as well as reduce additives.

Convenience foods and leftovers need to be used within shorter periods of time than fruits and veggies. See suggested foods for freezing with tips for preparing and packaging; thawing and heating; and suggested storage time in “Freezing Convenience Foods that you’ve prepared at home” at the link above. Food categories are baked products and doughs; main dishes and meals; eggs; sandwiches; soups; fruit dishes; vegetable dishes and desserts and sweets.

Peelings and cores of your produce can be tucked into a hole in your garden or landscape, providing your plants with some nutrients. For “in-place” composting, just dig an 8-inch-deep hole, add the peelings, then cover them with the soil. See a great composting publication “Do the Rot Thing – choosing and using a composting system, EM 9475” in the OSU Extension Catalog online at extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog.

When you use the extra foods that you preserved by freezing, you can enjoy the variety of foods you grew or purchased throughout the year.