Food Safety: wash produce and then kill bacteria
Wash fruits and vegetables
Thorough washing of fruits and vegetables with water removes some bacteria and viruses as well as many pesticide residues. Use a small vegetable brush to remove surface dirt. Don’t use soap or detergents. Don’t eat the outer leaves of leafy vegetables (lettuce, cabbage). Removed bruised areas, as bacteria grow readily in them.
For an added measure of protection against bacteria, you can create a simple, safe disinfecting spray. Use two new clean spraying bottles and put 3% hydrogen peroxide (the kind you buy at the drugstore) in one and white vinegar in the other. (To maintain its effectiveness, hydrogen peroxide must be stored in a container that does not allow in light, or be kept in a cabinet. A simple solution is to screw a spray nozzle onto the hydrogen peroxide fruit.jpgbottle.) Spray them on fruits and vegetables one after the other in either order. Rinse with water. (This one-two combo can also be used to clean surfaces. It is more effective at killing potentially lethal bacteria than chlorine bleach or any commercially available kitchen cleaner. Using them one after the other in either order is 10 times as effective as either one alone. Also, it is less effective to combine them in a single bottle.)
Healthy Families, Heathy Environment
My personal experience using this method:
I have found that if the peroxide (which I tend to use before the vinegar) actually foams, it will usually happen on something that was questionable to begin with. Yesterday, I bought a 1/2 cantaloupe, something that I usually do not do because I’ve often noticed they they don’t wash the outside of the melon before cutting (ugh!). Well, I knew I had better spray it (although the normal tendency would have been to just dig in). When the hydrogen peroxide hit the cut surfaces, it began to foam like crazy! I tossed the whole thing in the trash–better than being sick from bacteria. This has happened only a few times over the last few years–once with fresh broccoli that had been in the fridge too long. I keep a large plastic bowl in my drainer–always ready to toss in the veggies or fruit, grab the spay bottles and give them a good squirt all over, then wash and rinse well. I just love this method, and its very economical and safe.
