1. Demand Fresh Vegetables
Shopping for fresh vegetables starts with choosing a reliable market you can trust and know they offer the freshest vegetables as possible. If that means a weekly farmers market or grocery store that guarantees fresh, local produce, so be it. It requires demanding the best and shopping around until you find it. Talk to the local farmer at the farmer's market or produce manager at the grocery store to find out which vegetable is local and when it was picked. Above all, don't compromise when you demand fresh vegetables.
2. Start from the Roots
Root vegetables such as beets, carrots, radishes and potatoes grow in rich soil with green, thriving stalks soaking up the elements above the ground. Picking out root vegetables worth buying and eating at your dinner table requires a sharp eye and keen sense of what is fresh and what's not. Be extremely picky. Root vegetables that give in when picked up are not fresh. One of the best ways to describe an unhealthy root vegetable is that they feel like rubber and are discolored. They need to be solid and feel strong. You can even have the farmer or produce clerk cut open a root vegetable. If it snaps to the cut, it's fresh. Carrots and radishes can be taste tested. Do they snap with your bite? If so, they're fresh.
3. Shop with the Seasons
The best way to ensure fresh vegetables is to buy the vegetables when they are in season. The benefits to seasonal shopping are lower prices, locally grown and fresher vegetables. Talk with your local farmer's market or produce clerk and find out the seasons for each vegetable, so you get nothing but fresh. As an example, tomatoes grown during the winter tend to have a thick skin and taste bland. It wouldn't even splat if you hit it with a baseball bat. Tomatoes grown in season appear juicy, solid and taste yummy.
4. Now, That's Fresh Lettuce!
Green leafy vegetables make the tastiest salad or coleslaw, but it takes a smart eye and patience to pick the freshest bunch. Fresh lettuce is crisp to the touch. Simply break a leaf, and if it snaps, that's fresh. Go ahead and take a bite. Make sure it's crisp through and through. Do you notice brown spots or tears throughout the lettuce leaves? The more the brown spots or tears, the less fresh the lettuce. Also, avoid lettuce kept on ice. The ice freezes the lettuce leaves, causing them to turn to mush when you get them home. When the cabbage holds the large green outer leaves, it is still very fresh and new to the produce section. Produce clerks remove the large green leaves when they look brown, meaning not as fresh.
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