How to wash your fresh fruit & veggies
Whilst the BEST way to reduce your pesticide exposure is to choose organic food when you can (bonus points if it’s homegrown!), but whether you’re buying conventional or organic produce, it’s also important to wash your store-bought fruits and veggies before eating or cooking with them.
How to Wash Produce
Do you usually wash your produce by rinsing it under cold, running water? Most people do. This method works well to remove some of the pesticide residues from some forms of produce.
Scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station found that washing produce with running water reduced the amount of pesticide residue for 9 of the 12 tested pesticides.
But several other methods of washing produce have been shown to be more effective than plain water.
Washing Produce with Pure Soap
Grounded’s Pure Soap is a brilliant way to wash your vegetables. It’s an all natural, all purpose soap which is concentrated. So just 10ml in a sink half full should do the trick, and your vegetables will be cleaned.
Washing Produce with Salt Water or Vinegar
Salt water is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to remove certain pesticides.
This study found that a 10% salt water solution was effective in removing a large percentage of pesticides from produce, far more so than washing with plain water.
A 10% vinegar solution was found to be equally as effective. But using vinegar regularly might get expensive and can leave foods with an unwelcome vinegary flavor, making it less than ideal for a daily vegetable wash.
The Best Way to Wash Fruits and Vegetables
Here’s a quick and easy way to wash veggies using baking soda:
For Leafy Greens
- Fill a salad spinner with greens, then fill it with water.
- Add a teaspoon of baking soda and mix well.
- Soak your greens for ten minutes, swish, dump, then rinse and spin dry.
- If you don’t have a salad spinner, you can add the greens, water, and baking soda to a bowl, let them soak, drain in a strainer, rinse, then pat leaves dry with a clean lint-free kitchen towel or paper towels.
For Mushrooms
There is some debate in the culinary world about how to clean mushrooms.
Some chefs prefer to gently wipe mushrooms with a damp towel. However, to clean mushrooms thoroughly, you can gently scrub them using a mushroom brush and then rinse them quickly under running water. After that, blot the mushrooms dry with a clean kitchen towel or paper towel.
For Other Veggies
- Fill a large bowl with cold water.
- Mix in baking soda (about a teaspoon for every 500ml of water).
- Add the veggies.
- Soak for ten minutes.
- Drain.
- Scrub with a brush.
- Rinse off the veggies.
The baking soda solution was found to be most effective at removing pesticide residues from the surface of apples.
How To Wash Fruits
Smooth-skinned fruits, such as apples, nectarines, and cherries, can be washed in a baking soda bath or a bath with our veggie wash in the same way as veggies.
Berries can be rinsed under cold water in a mesh strainer, then gently patted dry with a clean kitchen towel or paper towels just before you intend to eat them.
Although your instinct may be to rinse off berries when you bring them home, doing so actually increases moisture and accelerates spoilage, microflora, and mould. This is why it’s best to rinse them shortly before you eat them.
The Takeaway?
Try to choose organic produce as much as possible, especially if you are a pregnant woman or when shopping for food for children. For practising good food hygiene, learning how to wash produce is important, whether it’s organic or conventional.
But this shouldn’t be something that causes you stress. Simply soaking your vegetables for a few minutes or rinsing your produce in running water will help make the food you eat and serve safer.
Eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is one of the best things you can do for your health. But take the next step and do the best you can to clean them, knowing you’re doing something very good for yourself and your health.
Please follow our social channels to get the latest! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
