Pete Luckett's pro tips for putting potatoes away
If you purchase potatoes in plastic, move them into a paper bag when you get home
Even potatoes were being packaged in plastic in the 1980s.
It was a trend that caught the eye of grocer Pete Luckett, as he provided Midday viewers with tips on how they should store their plastic-shrouded pommes de terre.
"I'm going to talk about the good, old, faithful Canadian potato," Luckett said, during a segment that aired on the current affairs TV program on Nov. 8, 1988.
"It's an item which is in everybody's diet and certainly during the last 20 or 30 years, potatoes have always been bought in a brown or white paper bag."
Potato packaging trend
But times were changing and Luckett said "it seems more and more the trend these days is to sell potatoes in plastic bags."
Luckett said that meant you got a good look at your potatoes before you bought them, rather than hauling home a sackful of unseen spuds and finding out they weren't as good as you were expecting.
"The thing about it is, when you get that bag of potatoes home, if you leave it exposed to the light, you'll notice that your potatoes actually turn green," Luckett said.
To avoid that problem, Luckett had a simple suggestion.
'The secret is...'
"The secret is, is when you get them home, don't throw the bag of potatoes down in the corner," he advised.
"Transfer them into a paper bag — which seems a bit crazy because that's what we used to buy 'em in, but anyway — it's the best way to keep them."
After that, Luckett said to keep them in a cool, dark place and to never put them in the refrigerator.
"The brown paper bag is the trick and handle them with care," he said.
