What you see: Your celery is limp, bendy or floppy.
What it is: The celery lost water, which caused it to lose turgidity and go floppy.
Eat or toss: Eat! As long as it otherwise looks good, the celery is still good to eat. You can put it in a cup of water in the fridge to revive it overnight. Or, just use it in a cooked dish where the loss of crunch wouldn’t be noticeable.
Why does celery go floppy?
Celery, like all raw fruits and vegetables, loses water as it ages. For a crunchy vegetable like celery which is normally 95 percent water, that lost water can make a big difference in the quality of your salad or the crunch of your ranch-dipped sticks.
Celery can lose up to 8 percent of its weight and still pass muster among consumers, according to Horticulture Innovation Australia. But, neglect celery for too long, and it will easily lose enough water to flop.
Is celery still safe to eat if it’s bendy?
Yes! It simply has less water. That said, water loss in fruits and vegetables typically occurs alongside aging, so floppy celery is older celery, with weakened cells, diminishing quality and less ability to fend off microorganisms. Eat it fast!
Can you revive bendy celery?
Yes! Cut off the bottom of the stalks (technically called petioles) and place them in a glass of water. Here’s how much of a difference that can make: overnight, the celery below went from floppy to firm.
How should you store celery to keep it crisp and extend its life?
Keep it cool, which slows aging and in a humid part of the fridge, which will slow transpiration, in which water escapes from openings in the plant, as well as respiration, which also releases water and ages cells. But while the celery should be cool and humid, you also want to make sure it’s dry.
You’ll also want to keep it away from certain types of produce. Celery will go bad faster if it’s stored next to fruits (like bananas, avocados, apples) that emit ethylene gas. In plants, ethylene is a naturally occurring plant hormone that promotes ripening and aging.
SOURCES:
- Celery. Product Guides. Postharvest Management of Vegetables. Horticulture Innovation Australia. Accessed March 2024.
- Celery: Commercial Vegetable Recommendations. Bernard Zandstra. Michigan State University. February 16, 2016.
- Controlled atmospheres enhance postharvest green celery quality. Perla A. Gómez, Francisco Artés. Postharvest Biology and Technology. Volume 34, Issue 2, November 2004, Pages 203-209Postharvest Physiology and Pathology of Vegetables (CRC Press). Chapter 5: Transpiration and Water Stress. Shimshon Ben-Yehoshua and Victor Rodov, Agricultural Research Organization-The Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel
