I also just rinse with warm water. I will sometimes use a little fingernail brush to get the caked-on crud off (I only use that brush for scrubbing veggies), but that's about it.
I'm also in agreement with the others who mentioned that Americans are way too germophobic and that it is probably contributing the the evolution of superbugs (viruses, etc).
I grew up in an era where my Mom often cleaned my face by licking her thumb and using it to rub the dirt off, and where there was no such thing as anti-bacterial anything. I survived it just fine.
Last edited by Apple Cheeks; 04-24-2008 at 06:50 PM.
Americans are the freakiest about everything being squeaky clean and anti-bacterial. Why do you think we have so many resistant strains of viruses now that are getting more and more deadly?
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You know I was thinking this reading this thread! Maybe it is the difference in produce but all this talk about wax on the fruit and using soap to clean your food seems crazy to me!
A little dirt isn't a bad thing! Over cleanliness and things like anti-bacterial soaps are making the worlds a worse place. And yes this is my opinion but I do teach microbiology so I'm not exactly ignorant.
I'm with the rinsers. A little dirt never killed anyone. Honestly - the dirt on the veggies is better for me than the grease on the fries, right?
And my girls are teenagers now, so if they see me eye-balling them and licking my thumb they run the other way. They know they've got something on their face I think needs to come off!
You know I was thinking this reading this thread! Maybe it is the difference in produce but all this talk about wax on the fruit and using soap to clean your food seems crazy to me!
A little dirt isn't a bad thing! Over cleanliness and things like anti-bacterial soaps are making the worlds a worse place. And yes this is my opinion but I do teach microbiology so I'm not exactly ignorant.
Do veggies in other parts of the world--Britain, Europe, Canada--come with the plastic packaging or waxing we have here in the States?
That is what I was wondering about when I said it might be the produce because our fruit only has their natural waxes nothing else on them. We need someone who has lived in multiple countries including the US!
I rinse vegetables under running water. With celery, I use a vegetable brush because dirt tends to cling to it. I also rinse off apples and wipe them dry with paper towel.
For fresh mushrooms, I use a mushroom brush (very soft) to brush off the dirt, if there is any. I never rinse them--best to use them dry.
I do my best to buy locally grown, organic produce. The USDA's own tests show that most non-organic produce contain residual pesticides even after washing. Some fruits/veggies retain the chemicals more than others; a google search about contaminated fruits and veggies will give you lists of the most and least contaminated, which can provide some guidance.
If I cannot get or afford to get the organic fruits and veggies (some are just way too pricey for me) I use a product literally called Veggie Wash. My grandfather got really sick when I was younger from eating unwashed fruits and veggies and it messed up his insides - he had stomach problems from that point on. Maybe they misdiagnosed - I don't know, but since then it has made me very leery.
On the question of wax etc, in other countries - I know when I lived in the Middle East - when we went into the grocery stores, we did not find wax on the fruits and veggies there.
The months out of the year where I have to buy veggies at a store i give them a good wash...just water though.... I could care less about dirt but the rinse is really for any chemicals or um...lets say bacteria that may have been on the hands of those handling the produce before me. No soap...I figure if I'm going to use dish soap to wash the veggies I may as well just eat any chemicals that ended up on them.
The rest of the year we grow all our own produce... I grew up picking tomatoes and eating them right off the vine and I still do it. We grow organic at home...I don't go out of my way to buy organic at the stores near me (they are really awful stores) and the organic produce always looks really beat up, is slim pickins and quite frankly with soaring food costs not very affordable. We try to grow as much as we can and preserve/freeze to last into the fall and early winter so I really only buy produce in the store a couple of months out of the year. I tell you, growing stuff saves soooo much money and tastes sooo much better!
I wash all the veggies and fruit the best I can. I don't care that much about the dirt - it's the chemicals that I really want off.
Recently I was washing some grapes grown in Chilie. I tasted one before I washed it and I could taste the chemicals ( whatever the chemicals were) that they used to grow them. It kind of grossed me out.
So you washers out there--- do you really think that just rinsing them for a couple seconds under running water gets that pesticide off?
I guess my question is really: how much really comes off over a couple second swish under water versus if I didn't do it at all in the first place?
Is that what the "Fit" spray is for? Like, does it break down the pesticides so that they come off easier under a rinse under water? Just wondering...
I would put the extra effort in if I thought it would be beneficial-- but I don't see how running an apple under my faucet for a couple seconds gets off any more than a good rubbing of a napkin or my shirttail.
I've tried using the veggie wash ("Fit") and I could taste the residue from it even after making sure to thoroughly rinse it off--it was soapy and unappetizing to say the least.
Yes, I believe washing things under warm water helps get rid of things on the surface like chemicals, and the ickies left behind by people who have handled the produce before me. I figure that for thousands of years people didn't even do that much, so I'm a step ahead of my ancestors there!
