Does This Viral Club Soda Hack Really Prevent Fruit from Browning?

Nobody likes brown, soggy fruit, so if there's a trick for keeping it fresh for days in the fridge, we're fully on board. However, we recently discovered a fruit-saving hack that seemed a bit too good to be true.

According to a post by @kalejunkie, if you soak cut peaches in club soda for about 5 minutes before draining the liquid and storing in an airtight container in the fridge, the peaches will stay firm and vibrantly orange for days. Bonus: Instead of discarding the soaking water, you can pour it over ice to enjoy a delicious fruit-flavored spritzer.

While browning doesn't necessarily indicate the fruit has gone bad, the produce appears much less appetizing with a brown hue and limp texture, and you (or your kiddos) might feel much less inclined to snack on it. Any hack that slows the browning process can help prevent food waste and save you money in the long run.

We Put These Fruits to the Club Soda Test to Prevent Browning

Peaches were the main subject of this test, but we decided to try it on other fruits as well to see how they performed. So, we soaked freshly cut apples, pears, peaches, and plums and stored them in the fridge to find out which fruits could be transformed by club soda. After five days, here were the results.

Note: You have to use club soda for this hack, not sparkling water or tonic water. This is because, in addition to carbon dioxide, club soda contains additives like potassium bicarbonate and potassium sulfate which give the drink a saltier flavor. These minerals work to prevent enzymatic browning and slow the process of spoilage.

Apples and Club Soda

While several comments warned this hack wouldn't work with apples, we found that it did a pretty good job of keeping the apples crisp and bright. However, the creator recommends a different storage method for preventing apple slices from browning that uses an even more standard household ingredient. Soak the apples in cold water with a pinch of salt for 5 minutes, then drain and store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to five days.

Pears and Club Soda

Likely due to the high moisture content of the pome fruit, the pear slices turned out brown, mushy, and nearly inedible after storage in the fridge. Instead, try dipping the slices in a 1:1 mixture of cold water and lemon juice before storage.

Peaches and Club Soda

We were shocked to find the five-day-old peaches firm, bright, and tasty. For comparison, we stored a control container of peaches that hadn't been soaked, and those turned out brown, mushy, and flimsy after just a day in the fridge. Moral of the story: the club soda made a world of difference in keeping the peaches fresh for nearly a week.

Plums and Club Soda

Not surprisingly, the other stone fruit, plums, also held up very well after a club soda soak. The slices were firm and fresh, with the biggest difference being that some of the bitterness from the plum skin had flavored the sweet inner flesh. All in all, the hack worked brilliantly and would likely work with other cut stone fruits as well.