Whether you’re buying pasta sauce or whipping up your own at home, trying to keep it fresh for as long as possible to reduce waste can be tricky.
Once jars are opened and the oxygen hits the food, the sauce is exposed to all the elements in the kitchen.
However, there is an unconventional hack which suggests that turning jars upside down and storing them as such will keep them lasting longer.
The idea is that by storing jars upside down, it will keep the food from going off – although it’s not necessarily ‘fresher’.
When jars are placed upside down, mould growth will slow down, stopping the food from spoiling quickly.
If it seems like it’s too good to be true, Tracey Rutherford, Food Editor at taste.com.au, said: “I have done this with tomato paste. I tip the jar upside down and tap it gently on a cutting board to make the paste fall to the top as it isn’t really runny.”
The hack was first noted in a now closed down Facebook page a few years back, but foodies still seem to love it.
Taste Foodie Alison Adams said: “I always store my tomato paste upside down. Not only does it prevent mould but it also means that at the end of the jar, you’re not reaching in to scrape the bottom.”
It especially works with different sauces, tomato paste, and salsas.
Now, the hack doesn’t strictly prevent mould from growing on jarred food altogether, but can definitely help prevent food waste.
Cathy Moir, a Senior Food Microbiology Consultant with CSIRO Agriculture and Food, explained that turning jars upside down won’t keep food fresher, but that it will slow down the growth of bacteria long enough that the food won’t be ruined.
She told the Daily Mail: “By turning the jar upside down, that surface where a mould may have landed when you opened the jar is now squashed against the lid without much air and it will find it more difficult to grow.”
The hack also won’t stop yeast and some bacteria from growing, as they can grow with or without air.
She added: “Commercially processed (usually cooked) foods in jars or cans are stable at room temperature until opening because they are sealed so microorganisms can’t get in. When we open them we are exposing the contents to the environment and all of the microbes that are on or around us.”
It would help to minimise the length of time jars are open, as well as using a clean spoon every time to reduce the microbes landing in the sauces.