Paper Towels vs. Vacuum-Sealing: Which Keeps Lettuce Fresh Longer?

Not long ago, a reader left the following comment:  “The food saver is expensive and a lot of effort. You can get the same result by placing half a paper napkin on top of your lettuce before you seal the jar. It absorbs the liquid, keeping the lettuce good for a solid week.”

I decided to run a test to see if my reader was right. Keep reading to find out the results.

The paper towel idea came from one of my first posts about vacuum-packing cut lettuce. Preserving chopped romaine this way helps me avoid wasting money on lettuce-gone-bad.

I’m used to these kinds of challenges from a select few commenters. I take them seriously.

You can read about two previous experiments. The first was a comparison of various attempts to keep lettuce fresh. The other was an experiment about cutting lettuce with a plastic knife.

Here are the ground rules for this most unscientific test:

• Cut lettuce into small ready-to-eat pieces. That’s important. I want my lettuce salad to be ready to eat in less than a minute when I walk in the door for lunch. Easy-to-grab junk food is less of tempting when I’m famished if have a jar of chopped lettuce at hand.
• Store the lettuce-filled jars in the same location in the same refrigerator. The jars are also filled with the same lettuce so freshness is the same.

In each picture, the paper towel jar is on the left and the vacuum-packed jar is on the right. As you can see in the first picture above, the lettuce is equally fresh on Day 1.

Can you see that the “paper towel lettuce” is showing it’s age?

Which jar would you choose? (See random thought #4 below.)

Random thoughts about this experiment:

1. I can’t resist commenting on my reader’s assessment of the vacuum-packing idea. Yes, vacuum-pack machines can be expensive. But, I have written about two excellent alternatives that are much, much cheaper. See this post and this one, too. Reynolds Handi-Vac; Wide-Mouth Vacuum Attachment
2. About the work involved: It may take upwards to an hour to prepare 5-6 jars the first time. But after a little practice, you should be able to reduce the time to 30 minutes or less. Promise!!
3. Consider the healthy eating habits you are promoting by making your salad easy to grab and eat.
4. Eleven days is pushing it, even for vacuum-packed lettuce. It’s possible you will detect the slightest older-lettuce smell in a jar this old. But within a few seconds, (when the oxygen hits it), the smell is gone. You could always give the lettuce a quick rinse.

Warning: Always store vacuum-packed lettuce in the refrigerator. Make no mistake! Vacuum-sealing is not a heat-processed canning procedure.

p.s. Thanks to the reader who left this comment. I always welcome new ideas and like to try as many as I can.