I often hear on our facebook page school mums ask how to stop apples going brown in their kiddos lunchbox … sooooo I decided to do a little science experiment and test out some ideas people had shared on the page in th past to see what worked the best.
The 3 ideas I trialled were:
1) Salty Water
2) Lemon Juice in Water
3) Lime Juice Squeezed On
So I cut up some apple and did the following:
1) I placed 1/2 a teaspoon of salt into one cup of water and mixed. I then placed 3 pieces of apple into the water for 5 mins. After 5 mins I rinsed the apple off with water and towel dried with paper towels then placed in a plastic school container for 4 hours before checking.
2) I squeezed 1/2 a lemon into one cup of water and mixed. I then placed 3 pieces of apple into the water for 5 mins. After 5 mins I rinsed the apple off with water and towel dried with paper towels then placed in a plastic school container for 4 hours before checking.
3) I squeezed ready to go lime juice directly onto the apple and then rinsed it off wiith water and towel dried with paper towel then placed in a plastic school container for 4 hours before checking.
And the results were …. DRUMROLL
Lime and salt water faired pretty well and lemon juice no at well but still ok.
Salty water seemed the easiest to me and the cheapest. I always have salt in the cupboard so that is also a win. The apple did have some subtle flavours of lemon and lime which I quite liked but depending on your kiddo they might not. The salt seemed to not have much flavour change at all so that is good.
A few other suggestions by school mums maybe worth trying that I didn’t test out include:
1) Place apple slices in a ziplock bag, sprinkle with cinnamon & its a tasty treat. Doesn’t really go brown from being in the bag but can’t tell anyway from the cinnamon. Works for pear too.
2) You can use lemonade as well.
Hope this helped 🙂 And check out some other quick and easy luncbox suggestions here
