9 Common Food Mistakes & How to Fix Them

There are a few things in life that don’t seem to have good solutions.

How do you get the last of the toothpaste out of the tube?

How do you get all of those annoying banana strings off the fruit?

And how in the world are you supposed to make a nice, non-messy ice cream sandwich?

We don’t have a perfect fix for everything, but we do have a few life hacks. Here’s a list of 9 things you’re doing wrong (and how to do them right.)

1. Storing (and eating) Avocados

If you’re storing your avo’ in the fridge, leave the pit in the side you won’t eat immediately. This way, it’ll stay good for much longer. Additionally, try using avocado instead of butter in your recipes! It’s low-fat and delicious.

2. Peeling your Banana.

Do it how monkeys, the ultimate banana eaters, do it. Start peeling from the bottom, NOT the stem. It peels much easier, and the phloem (those banana strings you’re always picking off) will come off with the peel the first time.

3. Letting Pastries and Cookies Dry Out

Dry cookies. It’s inevitable…or so you think. Store a piece of bread with pastries or cookies in their container. They’ll stay soft and moist for longer if you do.

4. Juicing Lemons

This one’s simple. Cut your lemons lengthwise. You’ll get way more juice this way!

5. De-greening Strawberries.

Strawberries are one of the trickiest fruits to de-green. Take a straw, stick it straight through the center, and voila! The greens and the undesirable insides will come right out into the straw.

6. Mixing Nut Butters.

Any decent nut butter fanatic knows that you spend countless minutes painstakingly stirring the oils in with the rest of the butter.

The trick?

Store your nut butter upside down. The oils will combine naturally. If you use an especially thick nut butter like Justin’s, push a knife through the center before storing it upside down.

7. Seeding Pomegranates.

Pomegranates are easily the messiest and most difficult of all fruits to de-seed. Here’s how you do it the right way: Cut the pomegranate in half and whack each half with a wooden spoon over a bowl. Easy.

8. Cutting Mango

Chances are, you’re peeling the skin off with a knife first. If you are, you’re doing it wrong. Cut the four sides off around the seed (the seed is tall and wide).

Then, score each chunk with the skin on. Pop each chunk inside out, concaving the skin inwards. Now, you can simply pluck the juicy mango off its skin.

9. Making an Ice Cream Sandwich

You might be laboriously scooping ice cream onto cookies, smearing it around, trying to keep it from melting, and then re-freezing your ice cream sandwiches just to get a dessert.

The better alternative?

Buy pint-size ice cream containers, freeze them really well, and then cut the ice cream pint into circular slices—with the container still on. Place each ice cream slice between your cookies, peel off the container ‘wrapper’, and enjoy!