This is John Kohler with OkRaw.com today we
have another exciting episode for you as you
can see! Actually probably just about a week
ago got back from shopping the LA Los Angeles
wholesale produce terminal. And as you can
see I got lots of produce again. So you know
I always make a video like this, going over
what I buy. But this time I'm going to do
it with a twist! So the title of this video
is called Produce Management 101. So this
is whether you're maybe working in the produce
industry or whether you're just a guy that
eats a lot of fresh produce like me. I'm going
to share with you guys my tips on, you know,
how to manage your produce once you buy it.
I mean, we bought over twenty cases of food,
of produce here and you know it all has to
last. You know I get some of this stuff to
last about a month using the special practices
and techniques that I'm going to share with
you in this video. So for all you guys that
are curious, yes, all this stuff cost around
$400.00 and it feeds two people, myself and
my friend who also is into raw foods, for
a whole month. And you know, there's some
techniques and tips to do it to make sure
it last and to, you know, have a wide variety
of things and these are most of what I bought.
There's a few things also in the fridge that
I'll show you guys also. But in any case let's
get in to this video and share with you guys
the first category of foods that we bought,
and how they're used and how you manage them
the best.
The first category of fruits we got since
we are technically coming out of the winter.
We got the citrus fruits. So, one of the things
I often encourage you guys to do is eat a
variety! Don't just eat naval oranges, you
know, all winter long. Get as many varieties
as you can in different kinds of citrus fruits.
Here we've got some really delicious tangerines,
here we've got some naval oranges, over here
we've got my favorite, the cocktail grapefruit.
Here we've got some red grapefruits, here
we've got some cara cara oranges, here we've
got some blood oranges, here we got some meyer
lemons, I think we even got a standard lemon
left here, oh and a minneola tangelo. In addition
we've got some oroblancos living over there.
But the main thing you wanna remember when
buying foods in volume like by the case or
buying a whole bunch is, number one you want
to lay them out. So as you can see I laid
them out, it's best to do them in single file
which means you know one layer, don't like
pile them up on top of each other because
the problem is if you pile these guys up all
on top of each other you won't be able to
see the ones at the bottom and if the ones
on the bottom are rotting, then rot begets
rot. So you want them single file and everyday
what I like to do is I like to paw through
my produce or, fondle my produce, mmmm I like
fondling my produce. But it's very important
to fondle your produce and check your produce
everyday so I'll come out and like you know
maybe squeeze some of the- don't squeeze the
[shardum?] but you can squeeze my citrus fruit.
You can actually come out and squeeze the
citrus fruits and you can see like some of
the ones that are softer they need to get
used quicker than some of the ones that are
more firm and hard. Another thing you want
to look for is any kind of rot or molding,
you know we get this white kind of fuzzy mold
stuff on these guys and how it starts is it
starts in a little area, then it spreads and
can get the whole thing. So if there's just
a little bit of rot we just take the fruit
and that's something that you know if you
see rot, then that's like, guess what your
meal is today? The stuff that you need to
use today or else you're gonna lose it. So
we take the citrus and cut off you know the
section that's bad and leave the good half
and we'll go ahead and juice that, or eat
the citrus, or whatever other food we have.
Another thing you want to do to ensure your
long term success with proper produce management
and storage is when you're buying the produce,
this is very important, if you can hand select
it hand select out the case, you know, that
looks the freshest. Many times produce, depending
on where you buy it may be older and that's
why it might be a good deal, and we got some
amazing deals which I might share with you
in a little bit, but that's because it's older
and it's going out, or going to be going bad
really soon. So if you could open the box
top and make sure there's no rotten ones in
there, because once again rot begets rot,
if one or two are rotting that means the rest
are soon to follow. So pick out the box that
has the least amount of rot, that has the
most firmest fruits that's going to save.
So in general citrus fruits, they're pretty
good savers. You know as you can see everything's
just at room temperature here. I don't like
to store things in the fridge unless absolutely
necessary although that being said if you
do store these in the fridge they'll absolutely
last longer. But number one the fridge is
too small to store all this stuff. Number
two frankly I like to eat my food at room
temperate because when you're taking something
cold out the fridge and eating it, it shocks
your system, takes more energy for your system
to basically regulate that temperature warmer
so that you can digest it. Same thing with
excessively hot foods you need to regulate
that temperature cool it down so that your
body can absorb the nutrition out of it, so
like all my foods are room temperature. So
yeah, the main thing is come out check each
fruit, check each box, I mean it goes really
fast and you know, it's really nice when I
wake up in the morning come out here and look
at the bountifulness of all this and figure
out well what do I got to eat today? Well
let's see what I need to eat today before
it goes bad.
Next we're going to talk about the apples.
So the apples are yet another good storage
fruit, now, you know, at least the oranges
are picked fairly fresh and you know they've
got to be eaten. But on the apples it's highly
unfortunate that many apples, especially if
you're buying them out of season have actually
been picked, actually been put into cold storage
and many of which may be stored in oxygen
deprived environments. Now think about it,
how long could you survive in an oxygen deprived
environment? Not long. But these guys are
actually stored in nitrogen rich environments
so that they stay fresher longer, because
guess what, for the commercial agriculture
industry, including organic agriculture industry
it's all about not having the merchandise
or the stock go bad. So that's why they use
some techniques to preserve the food longer
than it normally would and are these techniques
good or bad? Well I'll leave that to you to
decide. You know I'll always encourage you
guys to do the best you cam. Another thing
I want to talk about real quick is organics
versus conventional foods. So the majority
of what I bought, actually everything that
I'm looking at except like one thing that
I'll talk about in a minute is organic. I
always encourage you guys to buy organic,
because not only are you going to not be consuming
pesticides and other chemical toxins, you're
also going to be not supporting the oil industry,
because most of the pesticides and fertilizers
that are used on conventionally grown produce
are derived from oil. So you know I'm not
in a big favor of that whole industry. So
yeah, buy organic whenever possible, shop
your local farmers markets as well. So, on
these apples here, you know this case, we
got a case of red delicious apples for ten
dollars. That's 35 pounds of red delicious
apples for ten bucks, and yeah we had to pick
through and when we got the cases in we'd
actually picked through each case and if there's
any bad rotten ones that are nasty then those
immediately go out to get composted in the
yard. Some of the other ones that have bad
spots and are soft already, go into the fridge
so we can use them sooner rather than later,
and the ones that look halfway decent come
out here. Once again if we come out and you
know this has a little bad spot on it right
you could immediately pick this up and eat
it or at least minimally I'd like to put it
in the fridge so that, you know, the majority
of my fruits are not in the fridge but in
some cases it's to preserve it, to keep it
fresher so it doesn't expire, I do and will
refrigerate before we get to juice it. A lot
of cases the bad fruits that aren't super
good like going bad I'll often times usually
juice it or blend them up into smoothies.
In addition we got here, we got some fuji
apples. So these were in a little bit better
shape this is a box of I think around 35 pounds
for twenty dollars. So I bought one box that
was like, maybe not in good shape, a little
bit more ripe or on its way out to use quicker,
and then fujis that would store later to use
later. So you know easily I've saved apples
for one month without any problem, without
any refrigeration. You know, basically keep
them dry and not moist. That's another thing
I want to talk about, the moisture level.
If you have a very humid environment and things
are more moist then mold and stuff grows faster.
So this is a very dry climate so we're able
to store things and have things last longer,
definitely important. Next let's move into
my favorite category of fruits: the tropical
fruits.
Now we're going to talk about the tropical
fruits, storage, how to use them and all this
kind of stuff. So as you can see the tropical
fruits I got, I got the standard bananas.
Now I didn't actually purchase the bananas
at the wholesale produce terminal because
I didn't find any good deals on them. Actually
I found that they're actually cheapest to
purchase at the local Trader Joe's and I get
organic bananas and Trader Joe's sells bananas
by the each. By the each it's always best
to pick the largest bananas you can. I mean
I know many women like large bananas and as
a guy, if I'm shopping at Trader Joe's I like
large bananas too. Because that way you'll
get a much better deal, if you pick out all
the small bananas by the each your price could
be maybe a dollar a pound, but if you're buying
the large bananas like I did, and I figured
this out, my cost per pound was like 72 cents,
which is amazing. I mean even at the produce
terminal you know it may be just below that,
but then you got 40 pounds of bananas. Now
while I like bananas and they're great to
eat in the winter and a good source of calories,
I don't particularly like the taste, and there's
a lot of other fruits I like to eat, but yet
I like to add bananas to my smoothies as a
nice filler, it adds a nice consistency too.
So all the bananas they store actually relatively
well and the problem I have is actually ripening
them up faster. So what I'll do is I'll take
a banana, put it in a paper bag with a couple
apples seal up the paper bag, not a plastic
bag, a paper bag so it can breathe, and they'll
ripen up faster. So I like having them in
all different stages of ripeness because I
don't want them all ripening at the same time
and have to make a couple meals out of bananas.
It's not fun, although I know many of you
guys may do that. Next what I do like to make
meals out of are these guys right here, these
are ataulfo mangoes, also called champagne
mangoes, and yes these are organic. We bought
five cases of these mangoes, this was about
a week ago. And we piled through about half
that amount so we have some left here. As
you can see some of these guys' skins are
kind of getting wrinkled on that. When the
skins are getting wrinkled that means it's
time to use them, so if you don't eat them
fast then there's other techniques that you
use to preserve them. One of the things that
I do is I'll have a demo. I did a demo with
making a coconut mango pie and I used a whole
bunch of mangoes. Another thing I'll do is
we could actually cut these off and freeze
it, so we'll have organic frozen mango that
we did ourselves and they're the bomb because
they're truly ripe when we're freezing it
a lot of frozen mangoes you may buy in the
store are not at their peak of ripeness so
that's a really good way to preserve them.
Another way to use them is if I just make
a smoothie, I mean I could throw like, five,
six, seven mangoes in a smoothie and drink
it down real easy, but you know I'd rather
just take these and eat them one at a time
and I'll eat the six or seven at one time,
in one sitting. Another thing you can do is
make your own dehydrated dry mango in your
dehydrator. So if you ever go to buy dry mango
at the store it's like organic, ten dollars
a pound! But man when you're getting these
mangoes and these mangoes are seven dollars
a case for about like, fourteen pieces man
that's super cheap, super delicious and super
good. Of course you know when we buy these
another thing I did was I bought them at different
stages of ripeness, so a lot of them, at least
half of them I bought when they were ripe
and ready to eat now because I don't want
to wait for my fruits to ripen, plus if you
buy them ripe they're going to taste better,
because sometimes if you don't buy them when
they're at their peak ripeness they won’t
ripen up properly. So I got a couple cases
that were a little bit more firm and hard
and not quite a nice bright vivid color, they've
all since turned a bright vivid color and
they're all ready to go right now. And that's
another way I stage my fruit you know if you're
buying it in a large quantity get some that
are ripe and ready to eat now, and get some
that are not quite ready. So that's the bananas,
the mangoes, and next, we've got one of my
favorite fruits, the papaya, also called “paw
paw” down under, but in the US “paw paw”
is actually a different fruit related to the
mango. In any case the papayas were probably
one of the only things I bought that was actually
non-organic and as you can see there's only
two left, and we did buy a case. The case
was I think like 40 pounds for fifteen bucks
non-organic. So yes I did buy these non-organic
because they're significantly more expensive
if they're organic, I think organic ones would've
cost ten pounds for like 40 bucks. So these
guys are the maradol ripe papayas and when
I bought these I always get these guys ripe.
If I didn't see any ripe at the produce terminal
I wouldn't have bought these because in general
I find that if you buy these when they're
not ripe they don't really ripen up properly.
So we bought these ripe, and because they
were ripe we've had to actually blow through
them really fast, so actually for breakfast.
I ate one papaya today and we need to do something
with the rest of these, whether we're going
to you know, freeze it or make smoothies out
of it, they need to get used A S A P. So that's
the other thing you want to remember, you
know whatever you buy that's the ripest you
know, you've got to use it the soonest. Or
actually at least put it in the fridge so
it can save until later, actually these we
might just put in the fridge to help extend
their life.
The next produce we'll be talking about are
number one, onions. John, I thought you don't
eat onions man, you're on an 80/10/10 diet!
Well while I do eat the majority of my diet
80/10/10 and eat, you know, between ten percent
and 25% max fat normally on average I eat
between fifteen and twenty percent fat, you
know and, “onions are an irritant man, you're
irritating yourself.” But yeah besides being
an irritant they're also cancer fighting and
very nutritious. Not that I say that I eat
onions out of hand everyday, but you know
I like to include them in my diet. Once again
I want to include things in my diet and not
like, throw the baby out with the bathwater
every single time on every single thing, right,
because there's benefits to every different
kind of food and I'm not saying eat them in
large quantities, and as you can see we have
like, you know, maybe a half dozen onions
compared to cases and cases and cases of fresh
fruits, and once again that is the majority
of my calories. So yes, onions store very
well, they'll be here a while, and this is
how bad we don't even eat onions, actually
they'll sit here so long that they'll actually
start to sprout on us and then you could actually
plant them and grow them outside so that's
kinda cool. Besides the onions one of the
favorite things I like to eat are avamajamas,
I mean, avocados. So we have two kinds of
avocados here today, and you know I'm not
a big fan of the hass avocado, especially
when they're being imported. This time of
year predominantly you guys are finding hass
avocados either from, probably Mexico right
now or potentially Chile. Hass avocados from
California are not in any wide distribution,
so what we got are you know once again about
a dozen avocados. And so right here we've
got the pinkerton avocado, has a nice long
skinny neck. This is a pretty good higher
fat content than these guys, these are the
bacon avocados that have a much lower fat
content. So I mean eating this is almost like
eating water, there's not a good flavor on
it in my opinion, but they're low in fat,
so if that's your goal. But I like to eat
any avocado as long as they're ripe avocados.
Ones of the things I've noticed about the
pinkertons is that you do need to be careful,
sometimes they don't ripen up optimally and
sometimes the neck here will still be hard
when the rest of the avocado is totally mushy
soft. But nonetheless I want to encourage
you guys to eat some variety in your life.
The other thing with the avocados is we'll
come out here and gently press the avocado,
you can't squeeze them too hard, you'll bruise
them, and if they're getting ripe then it's
time to put them in the fridge and like use
them that night for dinner. You don't just
like let them sit here and rot out, you need
to check these guys everyday, because once
they start going ripe, then they can go downhill
really fast. Next thing we got in the back
here are the sweet potatoes. These sweet potatoes,
for those of you guys who watched my video,
I don't know about a month ago or so now,
these guys have lasted since my last trip
to the wholesale produce terminal. These guys
are 45 days old you know, at least, and they're
still fresh. I mean obviously we've been using
them at that time and you know, once again,
I don't make my diet out of sweet potatoes
but I think they're an amazing food to add
due to the carotenoids in there. So I'll juice
them up, we've been making some sweet potato
chips out of them, which are quite delicious,
and you know I like to include foods instead
of exclude foods in my diet whenever possible.
Next foods in the back I've actually had for
a while, this is actually a pumpkin I grew
in my garden here, we're going to juice that
up one of these days. Also man these guys
must be at least two months old minimum. These
are some organic butternut squash, nice and
hard, still preserved, so these are great
storage vessels of carotenoids and vitamins
and minerals in there. Generally I like to
juice these guys up, or I might spiralize
them into some noodles. In addition got some
squashes from my good friends doctor Rick
and Karen Dinadenagru, that was oversized
and they're also still lasting as well.
The next two things I'll be talking about
are number one, tomatoes. So you know I don't
buy organic tomatoes, because number one they
cost more money, number two they're imported
from Mexico and tomatoes grown in a field
from Mexico don't taste that good. So what
I prefer to get instead are these guys right
here these are actually grown in the USA in
hot houses in Arizona. So it says “Arizona
grown” so just one state away from here.
We've got the roma plums, which are nice roma
plum tomatoes and as you can see they're the
hot house grown tomatoes, and they're still
on the vine. So in general tomatoes still
on the vine are a lot fresher, a lot riper
and usually taste significantly better than
the ones off the vine. And these guys are
grown in a green house and they're euro fresh
farm and these guys are certified pesticide
residue free, so I feel comfortable eating
those guys. In addition besides just the romas,
and we got one whole case of romas, we've
actually blown through probably one whole
case of tomatoes now, we've also got the super
cherries. The super cherries once again are
also grown in the hot house, green house and
from the euro fresh farms brand and these
guys are actually quite sweet and delicious
overall but between the super cherries and
the romas I prefer the super cherries. Now
it's very important not to fridge your tomatoes.
I know you guys want them to last longer,
but if you fridge your tomatoes the flavor
goes down dramatically and they just taste
like crap and you should not even buy them
at that point, in my opinion. That being said,
I like to keep them out, but also, like I
said you need to come out everyday and check
your tomatoes. In general in an aired or dried
climate like this the tomatoes I have last
no problem as long as you get them when they're
fairly fresh, you know up to like two weeks,
three weeks. I mean these guys look like the
day I bought them which was a week ago no
big deal. Of course you always need to go
through and pick out ones that are rotten
or bad or whatnot because, once one starts
rotting then they all start rotting that much
quicker. Aside from the tomatoes another thing
we got here was the watermelon. So you can
see I got a whole bunch of watermelon. Now,
“John, why'd you get watermelon man?!”
Well, number one this is organic watermelon
grown in Mexico and these are actually nice
and large sized. I don't know if you guys
price organic watermelon but they can be quite
expensive. We got these by the case, each
case was seventeen dollars and that means
each watermelon cost us two dollars eighty
three cents. So just the other day we juiced
the watermelons, we made like I think almost
two liters of juice and that was good for
one meal, so each meal cost us approximately
two dollars and eighty three cents for some
delicious watermelon juice. And the watermelons
are one thing over everything else here that
will save the longest as long as they're in
good shape when you buy them. So the way I
check the watermelons, you just want to come
to the watermelon and just check the stem
in, make sure there's no rot, the other thing
you want to do is you want to just press on
the watermelon. And this goes for when you're
picking them out the store too, you want to
press on it because it could be bad and old
at the store when you buy it and then it's
not going to save so long. These guys are
nice and firm if you pres son it your thumb
cannot press into the fruit, and also you
want to tap it. So you should have a thump
like that. If it sounds more hollow, more
soft then it's not going to store as long.
So I stored these easily, for a month. But
that being said you want to use it before
you lose it and as I said you know we like
to just juice these, blend them up, or just
eat them when they're nice and red on the
inside. So yeah, got lots of watermelons,
we'll be eating those at least, in a month.
Next we're going to be talking about my staple
food, and no my staple food is not bananas
thank you very much. My staple food is the
coconut. Now I mostly drink the coconut water
rarely eat the coconut meat, unless I get
these guys right here. These guys are the
young coconuts off the tree, these guys are
from Mexico, not treated because they're still
in the husk so they're protected by nature,
not like the Thai coconuts that we'll talk
about in a little bit. So I was really happy
to find these at the LA wholesale produce
terminal they're by the bag. I think it's
like fifteen pieces in a bag and a bag is
about eighteen bucks or something like that,
I don't know, somewhere around there. So they're
around a dollar each I was really happy I
was able to find these, because otherwise
you could only find these guys in like Hawaii
or Florida or what not. So these guys are
going to store very well. I have stored these
guys for up to a month before, and they should
store at least that long here, you've got
to once again pay attention, use the ones
that are the ripest. You want to check for
leakers when taking them out the box and putting
them up on display, and as you can see, once
again I have them all single level. And I
can take a glance really quickly to see what
kind of condition they're in. Now in addition
besides these coconuts which are my favorite
coconut, and I got like four of those bags,
or four cases of those, I got one case of
these white ones. So these white coconuts
are my second favorite coconut, these white
ones are also from Mexico so much less shipping
is involved, during transportation. And these
guys are more mature than these guys back
here, and they have a good delicious water,
but also the meat's thicker. So we have been
dehydrating the meat to make pie crust, and
actually one of the favorite things to make
now is the coconut milk and use it in the
ice cream maker, to make some kick ass, raw,
coconut based ice creams, using fresh fruit
as well. So yeah, I like these and oh I just
have these for a sample because I did a coconut
talk last night. Also have the standard brown
coconut. So I don't really recommend you guys
drink the water in the brown coconuts, often
times they don't taste so good, but I will
in a pinch and also the meat is significantly
higher in fat content, so that actually makes
it better in coconut milk and ice cream. But
once again I don't eat the coconut meat for
the most part in large quantities.
Last but not least as you saw in the video
before when I did the my fruit palace tour,
like I'm doing today, I got a lot of nuts.
And you know besides the nuts I have I got
a lot of nuts here. We've got things like
the filberts or the hazelnuts also the almonds,
also I got the coquito nuts, which I have
a good video on, these are basically baby
coconuts, there's not water inside but there's
some delicious coconut-like meat in there.
In addition I got the red walnuts, these are
actually walnuts if you crack them the walnuts
are actually red instead of the brown color.
Got the standard brown walnuts that I harvested
myself from California. In addition we've
got some locally grown Nevada pine nuts here,
definitely these are kick ass, don't get the
stuff from China in the bulk bins. Once again
I always encourage you guys to purchase your
food as fresh as possible. Literally I purchased
these from the person that picked them off
the tress. And then finally we saved some
apricot pits here for the apricot kernels,
they're high in B17 or letril, they are quite
bitter but I like to include these a little
bit in my diet. So as you can see the purpose
of this is to show you guys that on the nuts
the best way to purchase your nuts are in
the shell, because they're going to last the
longest and they're the freshest and you know
they'll be more minimally processed than the
ones out of the shell, because the ones out
of the shell, they may have been heated too
hot and then may not be able to be considered
raw, but in the shell they're going to store
longer because they're not going to go rancid
as bad. I mean literally they're in nature's
packaging. So I tend not to eat a whole lot
of nuts, my goal everyday is to eat a handful
and I'm lenient so I give myself two handfuls
max of nuts a day and once again another thing
a benefit of buying the nuts in the shell
is that you know let me tell you, you're only
going to crack as many nuts as you want to
eat, you're not going to just sit there and
crack them forever to eat a lot. So you're
actually going to eat less because it's more
challenging to get into.
Now what we're going to do is we're going
to go inside the fridge, because the fridge
is also where I have some produce stored that
I bought at the terminal because some things
are so fragile that you do need to fridge
them. So in general if I buy something and
it's under refrigeration at the store then
I will also refrigerate it. Obviously the
produce that I just showed you guys, in my
opinion you don't need to refrigerate it depending
on the stage of ripeness. That being said
there were some things I needed to fridge,
so let's go ahead and open this guy up here.
Inside the fridge one of the main things we've
got are these peppers. So these are actually
mini sweet organic peppers. So these guys
were about seven dollars a case for like I
don't know I think there were twelve little
packages. So we've got these guys all lined
up here and some of these guys we've got to
probably start using pretty fast, they're
on their way out and that's why we got a good
deal on them. But they're organic peppers,
and I always encourage you guys to get the
smaller peppers whenever possible. They're
much tastier. Especially when they're so cheap.
In addition you can see here we've got some
of the grapefruits which have had some rot
on the top. But you know while there's rot
on the top we can literally slice this in
half, we'll throw out the rotten half and
juice the other half. So we put these in here
to save, and we've got to use these here really
soon. In addition found a ripe avocado today,
so we put the ripe avocado in the fridge.
Now when putting ripe fruits in the fridge
I always encourage you guys to put it right
at eye level, in the front so you can see
it. Because if you hide it in the back, guess
what? It's going to go rotten on you because
you're not going to know it's there. So maybe
tonight for dinner I'll make a grapefruit
avocado dressing, maybe. Probably will not.
You never know. In addition we've got some
of these apples here that are kind of going
soft, you know that we're also ready to juice
and in addition we've got these guys in here
so these guys are from Pepe's Organics. So
what we have here is we have a whole case
of 22 pounds for eighteen dollars of the Persian
cucs. So the Persian cucs are pretty much
like baby English cucumbers, they're much
smaller, they're seedless and actually the
skin's not bitter. So I like these a lot whether
I want to cut them up in salads or actually
juice these with some apples or with some
greens, definitely a good thing. Over on this
side some of the things we also got, we got
three cases of strawberries. So they were
going ripe so we did freeze some, and we have
actually four pounds left and this was for
a case thirteen dollars. So that was definitely
a good deal for some organic strawberries.
We'll have to polish these off soon, and as
you can see the display until date is March
fifteenth, but even though its display until
March fifteenth it's still definitely good
for a couple days after. But these have got
to get used pretty soon. In addition because
I did a coconut talk I got a case of the young
Thai coconuts for use in the talk, and once
again I do want to say that these have been
dipped in fungicides and sulfides thyma benzoyl
is a fungicide and if you're eating conventional
bananas that's what they've sprayed on here
and I'd rather get my thyma benzoyl which
is basically a fungicide, also they use it
for de-worming as a drug for people, I'd rather
get it from my coconuts. That being said I
do not believe that a significant portion,
if any, get in through the husk, through the
hard shell and then into the meat and the
water. Another thing that I want to mention
is that if you do get a Thai coconut like
this and it is pink or purple on the inside
that means it's bad. It doesn't mean it's
ripe, that means it's going bad and I encourage
you guys to throw it out. So that's the Thai
coconuts. Over on this side we've got some
of the apples. So, these apples are actually
from last months trip to the wholesale produce
terminal we had apples left because they're
granny smiths and nobody likes to eat granny
smith's around here, but they're good for
juicing because they have a good texture for
the juicer. So they were still out when we
left, and I said okay put them in the fridge
so they're still lasting. So yes, you could
even store these for over a month, as long
as you get them when they're pretty fresh
and ready. Also got some carrots the carrots,
actually organic carrots, Bunny-Luv carrots
are actually from Costco instead of the produce
terminal because they're actually cheaper
at Costco.
Finally what we're going to talk about are
down here. One of the things we don't have
anymore of are the blueberries. I got a case
of what they call “seconds blueberries”
it was a case of organic twelve small four
ounce containers for five bucks. So that was
basically, split that, six four ounce containers
for breakfast, one morning, actually the morning
of the terminal because they were that bad
we had to just wash them, sort through, chuck
about five percent of them, and we had some
delicious blueberries for breakfast for only
two dollars and fifty cents, so that's great.
Another really good deal we had to use and
use quickly are these guys here, and we only
have three bags left here. These are organic
grapes. Organic grapes can be exceedingly
hard to find especially this time of year
there's conventional grapes, but these are
organic and these are hard to find. These
are glow grapes, red glow grapes, with the
seeds! Hey people, if you guys are eating
fruits I always encourage you guys to eat
the fruits with the seeds whenever possible
because there are nutrients in the seeds!
Like the pycnogenol in the seeds of the grapes.
I mean you can buy grape seen extract at your
health foods store, but why bother supplement
when you can eat the grape seeds and chew
them really well, or you could blend them
really well, or actually what I'm going to
do with these guys is juice them. While these
are organic they don't in my opinon taste
as good as grapes fresh in California at the
end of the season when they're ripe, so you
know in that case a lot of the foods, especially
if you have a large quantity you need to use
relatively quickly. You know I like to blend
them up, drink the juice, get the most nutrition
out of it and then I go ahead and compost
the peels. So actually that's what I'm going
to be doing next here today, I'm going to
make a juice off video using grapes in the
Omega 8006 nutrition center zone. Check my
other YouTube channel: Raw Foods, if you're
interested in that video coming up real soon.
So I know what you might be thinking “John!
You're like a fruitatarian right!?” Well
actually it's called fruitarian, not a fruitatarian
“Because I didn't see- you really don't
have any vegetables man. Maybe some carrots
or something but everything else was a fruit.”
Yes tomatoes and peppers are a fruit, and
yeah I had a couple sweet potatoes “But
like where's the greens man? Do you not eat
greens? I mean I know some frutiarians just
eat fruit and no greens.” Well absolutely
not. Greens are very essential, an important
part of my diet. And you know I don't just
get my greens anywhere. I don't buy them at
the wholesale produce terminal, although I
might be able to get them for cheap. They've
been cut, shipped, picked and guess what?
Greens are one of the worst things to buy
in case lot quantities because they don't
store long! They can go bad very quickly.
So I get my greens from an even better place
than the wholesale produce market. So let
me show you guys where that is.
I get my vegetables from my garden. As you
can see I'm sitting on a patio here and on
the patio I just have these ten dollar growums
boxes that I picked up at Lowe's on clearance
sale that I'm able to grow a lot of vegetables
in. I mean this one has lettuce, this one
behind me has lettuce, this has some Asian
greens, I have radishes over there, I've got
some garlic growing for later on. I've got
some sugar snap peas and snow peas, I mean
here's some little snow peas man and this
is how I get my vegetables. Vegetables are
really easy to grow, you could do it in a
small amount of space, I mean not even have
a yard. You could grow these on your patio.
Even if it's just a little bit grown in one
container, can offset the amount of greens
you need to purchase. Hmm, nice and crunchy
man. And you guys can't get the same quality,
the same taste, the same nutrition in the
foods you buy, even at the wholesale produce
terminal than that you can grow yourself.
In addition I mean, just a little small packages
of five ounces of organic baby greens from
Whole Foods for example, three dollars and
49 cents. Once you eat those five ounces,
they're gone! Poof! And there's your three
dollars and 49 cents down in your stomach.
But check it out, in this growums container
which cost me ten dollars I grow a whole bunch
of lettuce I can easily harvest five ounces
of greens off this today and then maybe let
it rest a day and then grow some more, and
then the next day have another five ounces.
And then you know in a week I'll easily save
ten bucks. And then through the life of the
plants you continue the eat and eat, it continues
to grow and grow! It's the never ending food
forest. So you know I have a whole bunch of
different greens including the bok choy and
the kales and the collard greens here. But
what I want to show you next, besides just
my growums containers is that I have a full
on raised bed garden where I'm growing even
more greens and more vegetables that I can
eat.
The best thing about growing your own food
when storing it is that you don't have to
worry about it, right? Because you're not
going to pick your food until you're ready
to eat it. You know I might come out here
for dinner and come to my beautiful red Russian
kale plants and pick some leaves for dinner.
In the meantime it continues to grow, it continues
to produce more food for me, and I get very
little if any food spoilage. Because you know
foods only spoil once they've been picked.
And if you're not picking it until you're
eating it then it's not going to spoil. So
you could literally have food forever, and
that's why I think growing your own food on
a raw plant based diet is super critical,
so you can have fresher food, higher quality
food than you could buy plus you're going
to minimize the food spoilage and minimize
money going into your compost pot because
that's where I want you guys to throw your
rotten foods, you know fruits and vegetables
to turn into soil to grow more foods into.
Now we're sitting in front of my lettuce bin.
I must have at least twenty plants in here,
you know I don't know about you but if you
go to the local Whole Foods or whatever and
buy organic lettuce, depending on where you
live it could cost two bucks to four bucks
man for one head. But check it out I mean,
twenty times four bucks. What's that, like
80 bucks? This is 80 dollars worth of lettuce
minimally. But check it out, I don't come
out here and chop the whole head down. I just
come out here and pick a couple leaves off
each plant and let the plant continue to grown.
This lettuce as long as it continues to grow
will continue to feed me. And man this is
some of the best lettuce I've ever tasted.
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode taking
a tour around some of the fruit I bought,
but also you know just a little bit of my
vegetable garden. If you're interested in
learning how to grow your own food at home
you want to visit my other YouTube channel
called Growing Your Greens or GrowingYourGreens.com,
you get hooked in and learn how to grow your
own food from me like I'm doing it here. The
final thing I want to say is you know if you
do have food waste, bad food, things that's
going bad you gotta cut off the bad half and
then chuck it, I don't recommend you guys
just throw it into the garbage and then it
goes into the landfill. That's an incredible
waste of resources. What I do instead is I
take any rotten food, or you know clippings
and peels and what not and they go into my
compost bin. So I got what's called a Joraform
compost bin, and if you're a raw foodist-
wow man that's quite warm, you definitely
have to own a compost bin to make your own
compost. Now while some cities around the
country may have programs where they take
your waste many do not, and I think it's far
more valuable to compost your own waste and
this sits up off the ground, it's made out
of metal, it's going to last you a lifetime.
It's insulated so you could even compost when
it's snowing outside. You could make your
own compost to feed you know your own house
plants, or better yet feed your garden plants
grow them in rich compost made in the organic
produce scraps you're throwing away normally.
So yeah I like this composter a lot, I do
have a really excellent video on showing how
to use this specifically. How to compost your
food scraps by adding your food scraps with
some standard pine pellets to create some
amazing compost like I'm doing here. You know
just opening this up and feeling it, this
is at 130 degrees, I mean literally my compost
is cooking and in just probably less than
a month now I'm going to have some good garden
soil to add into my vegetable garden to grow
even better crops than I have before.
So in any case I surely hope you guys enjoyed
this video, learned more about how to save
your produce, once again buy it as fresh as
possible, don't buy it if it's going bad because
then it's going to last longer. Stage your
produce, get some that's in its ripe state
to eat now, get some that's not as ripe to
eat for later. Number three if it is going
bad eat it that day as soon as possible at
least minimally put it in the fridge to save
it which will slow down the process at which
it's rotting or going bad. Next be sure to
juice or blend the produce if you have it
in abundance to get ride of it faster because
that's a way you can really concentrate the
amount you're eating and maybe eat a little
bit more. Like I couldn't sit and eat ten
apples, but I could juice ten apples and drink
the juice no problem. Next you want to think
about dehydrating the food or freezing the
food so you could use it later so it locks
in where it's at and it won't spoil on you.
And then also grow a garden. If you grow a
garden you'll never have any food waste, or
very little food waste, because you're only
going to pick it as you need it, and meanwhile
it looks beautiful. And plus you're going
to grow the highest nutrient dense foods on
the earth. And finally you want to remember
to compost. Compost all your food scraps to
turn your food scraps into organic fertilizer
for your garden. So hopefully after these
tips you'll be able to better manage your
produce you buy as a raw foodist and hopefully
even start growing your own. Once again my
name is John Kohler with Okraw.com we'll see
you next time and remember, keep eating your
fresh fruits and vegetables. They're the best.
