Economist Writing Every Day

This post doesn’t have a darn thing to do with economics, statistics, or finance. This is a post about citrus storage.

There are problems with buying citrus.

• If you get a big Sam’s Club size bag of limes, then they start going hard and thin-skinned by the end of a week.
• A bag of grapefruit? There’s usually one in the bag that’s goes moldy almost immediately and you know what they say about one bad grapefruit spoiling the bunch.
• Mandarins shrink and get hard to peel.
• Lemons – even if you refrigerate them – get soft and un-zest-worthy.

There is a solution. Now, our lemons and limes last upwards of 6-8 weeks with hardly a symptom of age. Mandarins don’t shrivel and grapefruits remain edible. No, silly goose, the answer isn’t free markets and the price system.

Maybe it’s all of the additional vitamin C that I’m getting. Maybe it’s the warm and fuzzy feeling of money well spent. But I’m now excited each time that we purchase citrus. And I get a cozy feeling of satisfaction whenever I see a nice lemon that definitely should not still be any good.

The answer is really simple. You too can achieve such amazing results. All you have to do is:

• Rinse your citrus under water, rubbing gently to remove any invisible bad-guy germs. In reality, you’re probably getting rid of mold spores.
• Place the wet citrus into a ziploc bag, seal, and refrigerate. The refrigeration further retards the growth of any unwanted spores. The sealed bag prevents too much air flow and drying.( I don’t bother refrigerating grapefruit and oranges because I eat them quickly enough).

That’s it. You too can have 8 week old limes and lemons that you bought on sale or in bulk that are nearly as fresh as the day that you purchased them.

Enjoy!