Are you ready to check out some of the best fruit hacks ever that will blow your mind? Well, from ripening an avocado, to choosing the sweetest watermelon, to preventing your apples from ripening, in this article we will discuss some of the best fruit hacks ever!
1. How to ripen avocado and store it
If you’re finding that your avocado is taking too many days to ripen, then all you need to do is store it in a brown paper bag for a day or two. The brown bag releases a gas called ethylene gas that is trapped inside and helps ripen the avocado in no time.
Tip: This hack works for most fruits like bananas, apples etc.
If you have ripe avocados then place them in the freeze, when you want an avocado, run them under hot water. Let them sit on the counter for 15 mins. Peel and eat.
You can mash the avocado, store the flesh in the ziplock bag and freeze it.
2. How to buy watermelon – Here are a few tips to buy the right watermelon:
The watermelon should have a consistency stripe pattern, wherein the green stripes should be dark green and the pale stripes should be creamy yellow. The watermelon should look dull in color and not shiny. If the watermelon has a large webbed pattern like scratch marks, then it is sweet. Find a watermelon that is uniform in its size and heavy in its weight, with a yellowish-orange spot on it.
3. Turn grapes into sour candies
Take 2 cups of green or black grapes (washed, rinsed and dried), juice of 1 lemon (to squeeze over the grapes until they are coated) and ½ a cup of organic cane sugar.
Into a bowl, add in the grapes, squeeze in the lemon juice and mix the grapes around until it is coated with the juice. Then onto a bowl, pour in the sweetener and roll all the grapes into it until they are coated in sweetener and freeze them until hardened (around 4 to 6 hours) and the grape sour candies are ready.
4. Stop apples or avocado from browning
To stop cut or chopped apples from browning, squeeze some lemon juice on top of it, give it a mix and then store in the refrigerator.
Or if you do not like the taste of the lemon on your apples, then you can add in 1 cup of room temperature water into a bowl with a tablespoon of honey or 1/2 tsp of salt and soak your apple in it for 5 mins, and then rinsed them in a colander under running tap water. These slices didn’t get a hint of browning after 12 hours at room temperature.
5. Pineapple as cough syrup
Pineapples contain an enzyme called bromelain that acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and also has mucolytic properties that helps break down mucus. So, into a cup of pineapple juice, add in a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper and a tablespoon and half of honey. Give it a mix and consume ¼ part of this mixture each time, 3 times in a day.
6. Banana peel sleep tea, whiten teeth and fertilizer –
There are two ways you can use banana peels as fertilizers for your plants. The first way is placing the peels directly on your mud (without touching the plant stem) and letting them decompose, while letting out nutrients. Another way is by soaking the banana peel in water for 2 days and using that water to water your plants, thus giving the plants the nutrients from the banana peels.
Whiten teeth – Take a banana peel and dip it in some turmeric powder. Rub the inside of the peel on your teeth for one minute and then brush as usual to whiten teeth.
Banana tea for sleep – Heat up the glass of water in a vessel, on the stove and place sliced organic banana in the water and let it boil, until the water color. This should take around 10 minutes or so. Then turn off the flame and strain out the banana tea into a cup. For flavoring, add in a pinch of cinnamon powder and honey which is optional. Have this tea before bedtime for a restful sleep.
To keep bananas fresh for long, wrap the stems in plastic wrap
7. How to make crystal fruit pops or fruit tanghulu
Into a heating pot or saucepan, add in 1 cup of granulated sugar along with ½ a cup of water and let it completely melt into a syrup. In the meantime, chop up any fruits of your choice into bite size pieces (like strawberries, berries (as a whole), orange pieces, watermelon pieces, grapes (as a whole etc) and then stick a toothpick into each of them (like a lollipop).
Then, immerse each of these fruit pops into the sugar syrup and once coated with the syrup, quickly immerse it into a bowl of ice-cold water bath in a bowl (cold water with ice) to harden and place them on a try to dry and your fruit pops are ready to eat. Make sure to do this for each pop individually.
Watch video – easily remove coconut shell –
8. How to make sour citrus fruits sweet
Cut open your citrus fruit or peel them into a bowl and then sprinkle some salt over it and give it a mix and then eat it. The salt will help lessen the acidic taste and bring out the citrus fruit’s natural sweetness. You can also make citrus fruits last long, simply add them to a jar with water and keep them refrigerated for months.
9. Sweeten an entire pineapple
Take your pineapple and wait for it to ripe (make sure that the leaves are kept attached until the pineapple ripens).’After it ripens, take of the leaves and then place the pineapple upside down for a couple of hours before cutting it and eating it. This will allow all the naturally settled sugars from the bottom of the pineapple to dissipate equally throughout the pineapple.
10. Get the flesh our of a kiwi using a hand mixer attachment
Cut your kiwi into half and then use a thin sized hand mixer attachment to dig into the kiwi, twist and turn it and pull out the flesh easily.
11. Vinegar Soaking.
To make a vinegar soak; start with a clean sink then fill it with water (alternatively this can be done in a large bowl). Add 1 cup of white vinegar and submerge your fruits and vegetables in the water. Let soak for 15 minutes. Drain the water and give the produce a quick rinse. Vinegar is all-natural, which means you can properly clean your produce without adding any additional chemicals or preservatives. It will also make your berries last long.
12. Make berries last long
Add your berries to a bowl with 8 cups water, 1 cup vinegar and 1 tbsp baking soda. Soak them for 10 mins and rinse off thoroughly under water. Dry the berries with paper towel and store them in GLASS container.
13. Orange peel
To make a natural citrus cleaner using orange peels, take a good handful and put them in a mason jar and cover with white vinegar. Leave submerged for a couple of weeks. Sieve the vinegar out into a spray bottle and use it to clean the kitchen counter, the stove top, even bathroom counters.