# Why wash vegetables before serving them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054 "2005-09-29T17:22:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/1 "2005-09-29T17:22:00Z")
According to standard kitchen protocol, you’re supposed to wash your vegetables before eating or serving them. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/2 "2005-09-29T17:25:20Z")
In short - to remove or significantly reduce any residues of chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, etc.) that might have been sprayed on them or that they may have been exposed to. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/3 "2005-09-29T17:26:36Z")
Washing the vegetables is also helpful in removing any animal feces from what you intent to eat. But it’s your choice, really. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/4 "2005-09-29T17:28:47Z")
It’s not just chemicals. Vegetables can be contaminated by bacteria from manure. There was a food poisoning incident in Japan that was traced to radish sprouts contaminated with e-coli. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/5 "2005-09-29T17:34:35Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > It’s not just chemicals. Vegetables can be contaminated by bacteria from manure. There was a food poisoning incident in Japan that was traced to radish sprouts contaminated with e-coli. There have been many many many incidents of food poisoning from dirty produce. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/6 "2005-09-29T17:35:34Z")
You wash them because…they grow in dirt? What do I win, Alex? ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/7 "2005-09-29T17:36:45Z")
But you tend not to scrub the hell out of a head of lettuce; you usually just run some water over it for a few seconds, or some other perfunctory action that just suggests some sort of half-assed nod towards cleanliness. Is there really a point if you’re not going to _really_ clean it? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/8 "2005-09-29T17:40:00Z")
Not just chemicals, but bacteria and viruses too: [FDA stops green onions from 3 Mexican suppliers](http://www.about-hepatitis.com/articles/chichis/chichis26.htm) > [@](#): > > (2003) > Shipments of green onions from three Mexican suppliers whose products have been implicated in recent hepatitis A outbreaks in Georgia and Tennessee are being stopped at the border by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. [Controlling foodborne hepatitis A outbreaks related to green onions](http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=30925) > [@](#): > > (2005) > Viral RNA sequences from patients in the three states, plus patients involved in a subsequent outbreak in Pennsylvania in October 2003 … > The viral sequence from each outbreak, however, was identical to one or more sequences isolated from northern Mexican residents infected with hepatitis A virus. The researchers concluded that the sources of the green onions served in restaurants in Tennessee and Georgia were three farms in northern Mexico. [Foodborne Outbreaks of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli–Rhode Island and New Hampshire, 1993](http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/etecinfo.html) > [@](#): > > Infections with enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) are a frequently a cause of diarrhea in developing countries but not in the United States and other industrialized countries. This report describes two foodborne ETEC outbreaks that occurred in the United States in 1993. > … > Illness was most strongly associated with eating garden salad made from shredded carrots and iceberg, romaine, and endive lettuce (46 [98%] of 47 ill passengers compared with six [22%] of 27 well passengers ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/9 "2005-09-29T17:52:21Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > **\> There was a food poisoning incident in Japan that was traced to radish sprouts contaminated with e-coli.** > > There have been many many many incidents of food poisoning from dirty produce. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply it was a rare occurrence. The incident I mentioned was a major and well-publicized outbreak with 17 dead and over 9000 sick, caused by a particularly nasty strain of e-coli (O157:H7). ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/10 "2005-09-29T17:53:44Z")
What I’m getting at is, if you don’t wash with soap, are you really doing anything to prevent Hepatitis A contamination? I don’t really see how running water over some green onions will do much of anything. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/11 "2005-09-29T18:04:13Z")
Well, you also get rid of grit, which is just nasty. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/12 "2005-09-29T18:07:27Z")
Germsies are ever present on all food. They like eating them as much as you do and then they multiply. So you wash them off as close to eating them as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Erinaceus\_europaeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@Erinaceus\_europaeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erinaceus_europaeus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/13 "2005-09-29T18:08:23Z")
> [@Cagey Drifter](#): > > What I’m getting at is, if you don’t wash with soap, are you really doing anything to prevent Hepatitis A contamination? I don’t really see how running water over some green onions will do much of anything. I don’t think eating soap is all that healthy either 🙂 And green onions tend to have dirt on them. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/14 "2005-09-29T18:22:40Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > Germsies are ever present on all food. They like eating them as much as you do and then they multiply. So you wash them off as close to eating them as possible. The problem is that rinsing veggies under running water is not getting the germsies off the food. Rising veggies is mainly getting off the dirt. ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/15 "2005-09-29T19:22:43Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > The problem is that rinsing veggies under running water is not getting the germsies off the food. Rising veggies is mainly getting off the dirt. Exactly. Okay, I understand not wanting to eat dirt (even if it probably won’t hurt you), but is it fallacious to think that washing (without soap) is going to alleviate the chance of contamination? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/16 "2005-09-29T19:36:17Z")
> [@Cagey Drifter](#): > > Exactly. Okay, I understand not wanting to eat dirt (even if it probably won’t hurt you), but is it fallacious to think that washing (without soap) is going to alleviate the chance of contamination? Even soap won’t remove all the possible contamination. What washing does is reduce the actual dose of contaminant down by a few orders of magnitude. When dining, would you prefer to ingest 10[sup]3[/sup] E. Coli or 10[sup]6[/sup]? Keep in mind, that generally a large dose of said contaminant is needed to make one sick. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/17 "2005-09-29T19:39:21Z")
> [@Cagey Drifter](#): > > but is it fallacious to think that washing (without soap) is going to alleviate the chance of contamination? Nope. Without soap, the rinsing and mechanical action will get rid of _some_ bugs. With soap, you’ll get rid of some _more_. Short of autoclaving your veggies prior to cooking, you’ll be hard pressed to get rid of _all_ organisms. Fortunately, you don’t have to get rid of all organisms to decrease your chances of getting sick; you just have to decrease the inoculum to a level where your digestive system is likely to kill what’s left. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/18 "2005-09-29T19:40:55Z")
Damn you Qadgop! Shouldn’t you be off attending to the tranship hull or something? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/19 "2005-09-29T20:39:33Z")
I was perhaps a bit hasty when I originally just mentioned washing to get rid of residue as subsequent posters have pointed out the problems with respect to both dirt (more or less removed by washing with cold water) and bacterial contamination (cold water washing of limited value). What previous posters haven’t touched on, and I think is important, is what will be done to the vegetables (produce) before serving. If they are to be cooked then the probability of bacterial contamination is greatly reduced as a function of the temperature and time that they are exposed to heat. If however, they are to be served raw, then I think you have the dilemma addressed in previous postings. Short of the suggestion of running everything through the autoclave (steamed vegetables anyone?) analogy, you have to use common sense regarding the source of the vegetables (home grown, store bought, etc.) and the sensitivity of the people consuming the vegetables (the state of the relative strength/weakness of their immune system). Other factors may also be important. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054/20 "2005-09-29T21:10:28Z")
Those who do the picking…you think they run to the bathroom, do their business, and wash their hands before putting their hands on those veggies? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wash-vegetables-before-serving-them/324054.md?page=2)