Washing Fruits and Vegetables

[CoolChange]

This may be an odd question; but, how do you wash your fruits and vegetables?

As part of my quest to become healthier, I am eating more fruits and vegetables.

I’ve known people who were at both ends of the spectrum from not washing anything (lettuce straight to the salad bowls, strawberries right out of the carton, etc.) to those who won’t eat anything they cannot peel and/or cook.

Personally, I’m somewhere in between and occasionally wonder if I am wasting my time with the washing/rinsing. I also wonder if I am putting my family’s health at risks by not doing enough, especially with the stuff I just rinse off.

I feel pretty good about my handling of apples, pears and the like: I scrub them with a bit of soap. I also do this with watermelons, cantaloupes, pineapple, etc. before slicing into them.

Pretty much everything else just gets rinsed from lettuce and spinach for salads to strawberries and peaches before eating. But, I wonder if it really does any good to just rinse them; and, if not, what more should I be doing to get the pesticides, bacteria and the like off.

I do not change this behavior much when traveling outside the USA other than using bottled water rather than tap (where the locals do not drink their tap water); but, I do think about it a bit more.

Final parting thought, only marginally related: Potatoes…skin on or peeled?

 

[Richard4444]

I use a mixture of vinegar and water for all of the vegetables and berries that I use for a shake to sit in for 15 minutes, then rinse well in an attempt to get rid of as much pesticide as practical. Also, I only use organic if I can.

 

[Walt34]

Potatoes I leave the skin on unless going in a stew or something but they're fully cooked anyway.

Lettuce I peel off the outer two leaves and throw those out, figuring the lettuce-pickers have limited options for cleanliness out in those fields. Then I rinse the rest with lots of water.

Apples and the like I just rinse thoroughly. If I'm going to throw out the skins as with oranges I may not bother with that.

 

[imoldernu]

Good subject... Will be very interesting.

Am kinda old, but pretty healthy, and have been so ever since I used to catch impetigo from scavenging the dump when I was a kid.

Rarely wash any veggies 'cept maybe potatoes when they're really dirty... and mushrooms... not because I'm worried about the sterilized culture wherein they're grown, but because of the black specks. Otherwise, just use the things that I buy in the markets as they are. If veggies etc. come from friends... like radishes, naturally wash off the dirt.
Dunno if it's because of growing up without worrying about germs, or just luck, but I just figure that if it was good enough for mom and dad, and grandma and aunts and the rest of the family that was rarely sick, it's good enough for me. The current culture of hand washing and special vegetable cleaners, just doesn't seem important, but not mine to criticize.

Wonder what must-washers are afraid of? Chemicals? Germs? ... and what kind of harmful bacteria lives on these "natural" foods?

 

[CoolChange]

I don't know about most washers; but, I am concerned about (not exactly afraid of) both chemicals and germs. I believe, but could be convinced otherwise with appropriate evidence, that both are more common now that a couple of generations ago.

On the germ side, I am primarily concerned with eliminating E. Coli, salmonella, and listeria. These are not likely to kill me; although, they might make me wish I was dead for a bit. They actually could kill my mother, mid-80's and becoming frail.

As far as chemicals, pesticides do concern me but not enough to always pay the premium for organic.

 

[Alan]

We rinse fruit and veg under the tap or in a colander and eat potatoes with the skins on.

 

[RetireAge50]

Rub the apples on my Levi's a bit. Eat cherries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes, etc as is. Wash the dirt off potatoes. Rinse vegetables if they look dirty to get the big stuff off.

 

[Meadbh]

I scrub and rinse root vegetables to get the soil off. I leave potato skins on unless I am making mashed potatoes. I rinse everything else in a colander, except for leaves such as lettuce and kale, for which I use a salad spinner. Fruits with hardy external skins e.g. avocados, I cut in half (or in thirds for mangoes) and dissect from the inside. I do run them under the tap before inserting the knife, to avoid carrying any external contaminants into the fruit. I leave tomato skins on.

 

[W2R]

I rinse anything I might actually eat (not bananas, obviously, because I don't eat the peel). I also scrub lightly with my fingertips while rinsing.

 

[rodi]

Rinse. Mushrooms and potatoes get a scrub (because I leave the skin on.)

I try to buy organic berries - so I'm less worried about pesticides there.

Don't wash bananas - just peel and eat.

 

[Sue J]

I wash apples, etc thoroughly and dry. I never peel these because I like the peel. I wash oranges before peeling as they sometimes have a wax or spray on them. I scrub cantaloupes with soapy water and a brush before cutting because anything on the outside is transferred to the part you eat when you cut into it, saw a demo on tv about that one. For lettuces I wash in a salad spinner and spin dry. Carrots, celery etc are scrubbed with a brush.

Because these things are often eaten raw I'm pretty careful. Produce is handled many times on the way to the grocery store and then handled again by shoppers who are looking through the pile.

Yeah, everyone is dressed decently and is driving a nice car but I've seen TOO MANY PEOPLE WHO DON'T WASH AFTER USING THE BATHROOM!!!!! I'm not paranoid but I'm appalled at how often I'll use a public restroom in a store and someone else walks out without washing their hands. If they do it in public what are they doing at home?

Pesticides are a minor concern, people germs are what I watch out for.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

Rinse both fruits and vegetables.


We buy mixed fruit of grapes, apples, pineapple and oranges to make fruit bags for the boys to take to lunch.


The rinse water is passed thru a colander to a big bowl underneath that I then take to spread on the back yard plants.


Same for the lettuce, spinach, broccoli, carrots, etc.


I see the water that I dump out - no way would I want to eat fruit and veggies un-washed.

 

[Mulligan]

I give a cursory washing of fresh fruits and veges that I eat. If I showered, however, the way I wash my fruit, I might as well never take a shower.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Chuckanut]

A tsp of dish washing liquid in a gallon or two of water, and then a rinse under the tap.

 

[zinger1457]

Lettuce should always be washed unless buying the pre-packaged bags which have already been washed for you. I frequently find dirt on lettuce leaves, especially near the stock end. A salad spinner is a nice little tool for quickly getting the excess water off the washed leaves.

 

[W2R]

I give a cursory washing of fresh fruits and veges that I eat. If I showered, however, the way I wash my fruit, I might as well never take a shower.

Think for a moment about all the people you have seen picking their noses while driving their cars (probably on their way to the grocery store to pick through the produce). You may never wash your produce as casually again!

 

[Finder]

I rinse anything I might actually eat (not bananas, obviously, because I don't eat the peel). I also scrub lightly with my fingertips while rinsing.

+1, water rinse.

 

[Mulligan]

Think for a moment about all the people you have seen picking their noses while driving their cars (probably on their way to the grocery store to pick through the produce). You may never wash your produce as casually again!

Yes, I am retired. I have no excuse for being too busy to not properly clean it!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[LOL!]

I eat a big large homemade salad almost every day. I buy the cheapest bag of baby spinach leaves I can, so they are not organic and I don't wash them. I don't wash mushrooms, but simply flick off the large dirt specs and eat the smaller ones. I use an entire roma tomato in the salad for one person, so I just rinse with water and rub with my hand. Carrots, nuts, raisins, blueberries, nuts are not washed. I don't wash the oranges picked from my tree, but just eat them.

I often eat wild mulberries, strawberries, and blackberries right when I pick them without washing. I blow off most of the bugs and just eat the rest. There is probably bird poop on some of things I eat.

As for germs, I want my immune system to be continually challenged in small ways, so that when a larger challenge occurs that I am ready.

I don't eat potatoes anymore and avoid bagged lettuce.

If something falls on the floor, I have 5 minute rule instead of a 5 second rule.

 

[6miths]

If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. I'm down with the 5 minute rule too. I try to get the spider bits out of my berries but recognize that these are delicacies in some parts of the world... I do rinse things and rub them on various things that are probably more contaminated than the object I'm trying to clean.

 

[travelover]

I use the dishwasher. With apples, if you use the dry cycle they come out nicely cooked.

 

[CoolChange]

I use the dishwasher. With apples, if use the dry cycle they come out nicely cooked.

Apparently Alton Brown does use his washing machine for greens: Why is Alton Brown putting lettuce in the washer/? - thenest

At the very least, he thought the idea made for good TV.

 

[6miths]

I thought Cosmo Kramer had a great idea when he was preparing everything in the shower.

 

[Theseus]

I often eat wild mulberries, strawberries, and blackberries right when I pick them without washing. I blow off most of the bugs and just eat the rest.

Hand picked and devoured immediately, best stuff in the world!

As for germs, I want my immune system to be continually challenged in small ways, so that when a larger challenge occurs that I am ready.

+1, but with this caveat... sickness and/or fatalities from food-borne illness tend to impact rather specific populations, those with compromised immune systems, or frail elderly, etc. and that kind of thing makes headlines. It is very bad for business for megafoodcorp to make those kinds of headlines. Unfortunately those things do happen, and that has led to society as a whole being more aware of food-borne illness. I tend to look at in a historical perspective -- before we had megafoodcorps and lawyers aplenty -- people dying off from foodborne illnesses were the result of scattered incidences not readily assignable to a root cause on some else's part. If the farmer/consumer messed up and contaminated his own family's food, it was as simple as that. If something goes awry in today's megafoodcorp process or distributions it could affect thousands of homes. If, for instance we somehow returned to the farmer/consumer mode, more people would be impacted by random, scattered incidents as all of those individual "producers" would be all over the map in terms of adherence to sanitary food handling during processing. But would that make the headlines? Or would we all go on thinking everything was just fine?

If something falls on the floor, I have 5 minute rule instead of a 5 second rule.

The cat has first dibs on that stuff

 

[MooreBonds]

As another poster mentioned, the level of pesticide and other chemical use in the 1910s/1930s, even perhaps the early 1950s was presumably much lower than today. So when I hear people say "my grandparents lived to their 80s, and they ate everything that didn't bite them back, so I don't worry", I can't necessarily say that they're comparing the same conditions back them to how things are now.

I am not a chemist or farmer, and I don't know the life-cycles of various chemicals that farmers use, but for safety's sake, I typically peel all veggies and fruits that have a skin, except potatoes (I'll admit to eating the skins on sweet potatoes and brown potatoes), and give them a rinse before I do. In addition to rinsing lettuce and other products (like strawberries, celery, etc.) that don't have a skin. I haven't thought about some of the ideas here (like a vinegar wash for fruits), but will look more into it now that people have mentioned it.

Is there any specific evidence or research people have seen that suggests one specific type of wash over another to remove pesticides? (i.e. vinegar and water, versus diluted dish soap, etc.)