I always rinse celery because I can usually see some dirt on the stalks. However, I’m wondering if rinsing other fruits and vegetables really does anything. If dirt is not visible, I assume that some rinsing has already been done in the store or before it arrives there. And if pesticides are used on fruits and vegetables, I would think that there must be some water resistance to them if they are to be effective; otherwise they would wash off in the rain or irrigation. If that is so, what good does any rinsing do?
So, without going to expensive organic produce, do I need to rinse my stuff, or is it just a waste of time?
To address just this: as a former Safeway employee who worked produce a good portion of that time: we never really washed anything at the store. The stuff in the cooled area got spritzed with water every hour or so, and the lettuce we would dump into a big cold water bath in the morning to crisp it up if it was starting to get limp, but “cleaning” was never the goal, it was just about making it saleable and getting it out the door.
Generally I’d say it’s a good idea to rinse off your produce when you get home, simply because you have no idea what’s happened to that thing before it was yours, and trust me, supermarkets are disgusting places no matter how clean they may appear.
Rinsing all plant produce is definitely better than nothing, but in order to get rid most of any pesticide residues a 10% salt solution is even better. Link. Might not be a problem if you buy fruits and vegetables that don’t use pesticides.
Whole fruits and vegetables are considered so healthy that even without washing you should probably still eat them, not to say washing them isn’t good advice.
Anecdote time: I stopped at a grocery store one morning to pick up some apples for breakfast. It was pretty early in the morning and some cleaning was still going on. Some of the produce bins had mats in front of them, the kind that are soft rubber with holes in them. The folks cleaning the floors had taken the rubber mats and draped them over the produce, to get them out of the way while they cleaned.
I called the store manager later in the day to complain, but I’m sure they still do it.
You should rinse the veggies. Some veggies (like carrots) even have labels telling you to do so.
At a lot of agricultural places, water used for irrigation gets contaminated by cattle farms runoff water thereby introducing bacteria like e-coli. This is the predominant cause for the frequent lettuce Recalls. You should rinse organic produce too.
Farmers usually use a surfactant (soap) with insecticides and fungicides so that it can penetrate better by removing the natural oils on leaf surfaces. So washing may not help with that.
In the Chemical Industry, we often come across reasoning like this :
My dad never wore a seat belt and he did just fine.
Growing up our house had no GFCIs and we did fine
I’ve never worn eye protection when working with power tools and nothing ever happened.
…
Risk is a product of likelihood x impact. When the likelihood is extremely low but the impact is extremely high, humans are not good at intuiting the risk.
So the chance of getting e-coli from unwashed veggies is extremely low but the impact, if you do get it, Is very high.
The risk is simply mitigated by washing your veggies but if you like to accept the risk, then it surely is your choice.
Melons and other fruits and vegetables with skins get washed with common dish soap using the same guideline we are all now familiar with (about 20-25 seconds) and then rinsed, even if the skin is not going to be eaten. I figure the knife will drag whatever is on the surface into the edible part.
Leafy vegetables get rinsed but without the soap since it may not get completely soap-free. The packaged lettuce presents a question since they usually say they are “ready to eat”, so they may get a rinse anyway. Grapes get a rinse, again I do not want to bit into a spot of soap on them.
Yes, I figure it is a good idea to either rinse or wash with soap any fruits and vegetables, and fresh herbs for that matter.
Yes, you should rinse your produce if you’re not going to cook it.
Possible. But pathogen load is an argument for rinsing produce, not against. Because it’s not like rinsing your produce is going to eliminate E. coli. It’s going to reduce it some, hopefully below the level where your immune system can handle it.
[quote] Organic food is the product of a farming system which avoids the use of man-made fertilisers, pesticides; growth regulators and livestock feed additives.Irradiation and the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or products produced from or by GMOs are generally prohibited by organic legislation.
Organic agriculture is a systems approach to production that is working towards environmentally, socially and economically sustainable production. Instead, the agricultural systems rely on crop rotation, animal and plant manures, some hand weeding and biological pest control’.[/quote]
Probably the greatest risk comes from food handled by people with low hygiene standards
Last weekend I picked three pounds of wild blackberries growing in our front yard.
I was simply going to put them in a bowl for people to chomp on. After all, we don’t use any pesticides or other sprays in our yard. But my daughter insisted on soaking them in water first. Good thing, because a handful tiny white worms floated to the top. She stirred the blackberries around until there were no more worms, scooped them away, and then drained.
Not the worms are inedible. But why eat worms when you don’t have to? Good call on her part.
