Feeding and Nutrition :: Lettuce Storage

[ohmygosh_22]

i buy a big bag of lettuce for our 2 RES turtles and after having about 1/2 of a bag of lettuce left, i noticed that they were dying....

how do you keep your lettuce fresh?!


thanks

[marisa]

The bagged lettuce doesn't last as long as a head of lettuce for me. I keep lettuce in the fridge's crisper and throw out any pieces that are turning brown.

Do you not eat salads? The lettuce would be used faster and have less of a chance to turn color. I generally share whatever veggies I buy to eat with my turts, even dandelions (we have similar taste in veggies).

[MommaEich]

Not trying to sound spammy but the Debbie Meyers green bags are a life saver for lettuce. I usually have 2-3 heads of lettuce in the crisper draw and they really keep them fresh for Charger and myself!

[TheComputerGremlin]

I'm too lazy to buy my turtle special stuff, so she gets whatever we're eating that week! Another option is to go to the salad bar at the grocery store a few times each week and just buy a few leaves.

I think that some of the lettuces could be frozen, I've frozen cabbage before. As long as your turtle doesn't mind cold, possibly limp lettuce, you could throw some into the freezer.

The bagged lettuce, in my opinion, lasts about 3 days after opening, if you are lucky. It takes my husband and me 2 meals to eat a bag of lettuce, so we don't usually have it go bad.

[Mickey]

I usually buy a head of lettuce vs bagged lettuce. My experience is when lettuce gets wet, it goes bad very quickly. I wrap the lettuce in a paper towel and store it in a plastic bag in the crisper. Every day when I get lettuce for the turts, I turn the plastic bag inside out thus keeping the inside of the bag dry. The paper towel helps soak up moisture if I miss a day or two.

[theartbook35]

What we did not too long ago, was buy a whole head of butterhead lettuce, with the roots still attached. My turtles seemed to like the butterhead a lot. We kept it in a fresh water container to keep it growing and alive, until we used it all up.

Butterhead lettuce is also very good for them. It has a richer flavor, and they seem to want to eat it more because of that.