Feeding and Nutrition :: how to store veggies?

[Boston_Zhao]

My turt has turned in one year old this month. But she still eats pellets as staple, with tremendous appetite. Now I start to give her some carrots, she ignores them unless really hungry. I found difficult to keep veggies, even in the fridge they only last 3-4 days, and what I can feed the turtle is only a few pieces. I dumped bags of veggie salad. I just wonder how you guys store your veggies for your turtles without wasting too much......

[SpotsMama]

You can put water plants like anacharis in the tank. they won't spoil in the water like veggies and most turtles love them.

Here's a trick to make your lettuce last and last. Get a whole head of nice lettuce like leaf lettuce. Wash it and soak it for a little while in some clean water so it gets nice and crisp. Then dry it completely and seal it in an airtight plastic baggy and store it in the refrigerator. It will easily last a couple of weeks when stored this way. There will still be way too much for your turtle to eat but you can eat it too. Good for the turtle and good for you!

[Boston_Zhao]

Thanks, but how do you dry it completely?

[SpotsMama]

That's the hard part of course! I have a good salad spinner and spin like crazy then I put the lettuce pieces out on a clean bath towel then I hand dry the pieces with paper towels.

Why can't someone invent a good salad drying device - something like a hair dryer might do?

[octpusgirl8]

What i always do is cut the bottom of the letttuce off, rinse the leaves really well, and shake all the water off. Then i put it in a big ziplock bag with a few pieces of paper towels and stick it in the fridge, and it lasts a good long time, at least a week and a half. I don't know how long exactly because that's the longest it's taken my turtle to eat one.

[marisa]

I only wash the leaves of lettuce I'll be using at a particular feeding and keep the rest in a plastic bag away from air. If moisture builds up, I change the bag to a clean, dry one.

[Smoofish268]

I do basically what octpusgirl8 does and it works great. I rinse the lettuce off, let it air dry for a few minutes, and then wrap it in several sheets of paper towel and stick it in a big ziploc in the veggie drawer of the fridge. I don't seal the ziploc, though; that way the air can circulate around the lettuce and help keep it crisp, and I just change the paper towels if they seem to damp. I've kept lettuce two weeks like this with no problems.

As for carrots, tomatoes, squash, etc., I never keep them in the plastic bags I get them in from the store. I wash all of them as soon as we get home, and dry them, then store them in the veggie drawer that has paper towel in the bottom -- that's it. Also, we keep a thermometer in our fridge to make sure it's cooling properly (My dad's idea...but hey, it works. We were able to save a whole fridge of food from spoiling when a part broke on it).

[megcornell]

I buy the loose greens at the market... usually they're the organic ones that are kept loose in bins. I only get as much as Leo will eat in a few days. Maybe it's a bit more expensive compared to the bagged stuff but as I'm only buying $.50 at a time, and wasting none of it, I think it's actually a wiser investment.

The drying/storing air tight ideas work well too... I'm just too lazy to do that most times, so I buy little amounts so if any goes bad, I'm not losing a lot of lettuce.

[Safdar]

I do whats was previously said

Any thoughts about freezing?

[Boston_Zhao]

drying veggies sounds like a lot work for me Variety can even add a lot more......
Do they make veggie pellets? or any ready-to-use veggie that I can buy from pet shop?

[sillyleisl]

Freezing lettuce I don't think will work well. You'll probably get limp lettuce because the ice crystals from the water content of the lettuce will break the delicate leaves and then you'll get soggy, limp lettuce after defrosting. Something with a firmer infrastructure like carrots might work better, but carrots keep a long time in the fridge anyways. Megcornell has a good idea because a lot of organic food lasts longer than it's non organic counterpart. I know that the lettuces do for sure.

[industrial_girl_2000]

I cook (boil) sweet potato and freeze it in small containers so it lasts longer.

Unfortunately a head of lettuce won't last longer than a week. But everyone here had some good suggestions so try those. I wrap my lettuce loosely in plastic and it helps keep it from drying out or spoiling as quickly.

[erwynn]

I'm also wondering about freezing veggies. I thought about buying some good turtle veggies, seperating them into weekly servings into freezer baggies and then freezing them. But I'm wondering if freezing them would ruin the veggies or mess up the value of the nutrients...

[marisa]

I've read that some frozen veggies you buy in the store retain a lot of the nutritional value that fresh ones have, but I don't know if that's because of the way they're processed (frozen). Some vitamins are more susceptible to temperature changes than others as well.

So, I think it depends on what veggies you're talking about. Leafy greens would not maintain their texture and wouldn't be good to freeze.

[SpotsMama]

Frozen lettuce turns to liquid when thawed.