Little-known berries washing tip keeps them fresh and mould-free for weeks

Berries are versatile fruits that go well in smoothies, salads, as toppings or on their own.

But they are notoriously short shelf lives as they can go mouldy within a couple of days of purchasing them.

While freezing them is a good option, it is not always viable if you’re looking to use fresh berries.

Thankfully, there’s a common household item that you can use to wash your berries to considerably extend their shelf lives.

Their thin fragile skins make berries easy to bruise, and when their juices are released, it can cause the entire batch of fruit to go off.

READ MORE: Air fryer cookies are ‘the perfect quick sweet treat’ – recipe

According to a popular TikTok hack, using white vinegar to wash berries before storing them can help to wash off any mould or spores that could potentially spread to the rest of your fruit basket.

With one part vinegar and eight parts cold water and baking soda, you can wash your berries thoroughly to clean them.

Then in a salad spinner, with cold water rinse out the vinegar to remove the taste.

In a video, Tiktoker Danielle Brown said: “The vinegar will remove bacteria and prevent mould, making your berries last for weeks.

“You won’t believe how much dirt and sometimes bugs come off your berries.”

The berries can then be dried on a clean towel before going into the fridge.

This method does not work to ‘cure’ any berries that have already gone mouldy, and those need to be picked out prior to being washed and stored.

Using vinegar is said to extend the shelf lives of berries by at least another week, making sure you’re not wasting any money or food.