Right now there is a lot of panic and overall fear about the Coronavirus, and while I have tried to keep myself calm and educated about it for the most part, yesterday I felt my panic starting to rise. I know that there are a lot of things I can’t control, so I am trying to keep control in the areas I have influence over. One way that has brought me a bit of peace in keeping my own environment cleaner and safer is something I am going to share today.
A couple of months ago I saw an article online about washing produce and kind of chuckled to myself, thinking we all wash our fruits and vegetables the same way. Well I watched it and it turns out I do not wash my produce like them so I started searching and apparently there are quite a few ways people wash produce. I generally just do a quick rinse under my tap water and call it good, and usually don’t even rinse things like avocados, oranges, or bananas that I will not be eating the peel of. I always just figured I was rinsing the dirt of my food, but as I started looking into the subject a little bit more I learned that we should also be trying to wash off pesticides, bugs, bacteria, dirt, and basically anything else our food has come into contact with. I’ve always been a bit of a germaphobe, which is definitely not my favorite quality about myself. But having been a person who has gotten sick VERY easily all my life, I take germs and sicknesses pretty seriously.
Well the idea of doing a produce wash had been on my mind for a while but I hadn’t taken the time to do it, and eyed my produce slightly warily every time I did my quick water rinse. I finally decided to try it on a day when I didn’t have a very busy morning and can tell you it was a bit fun. It made me get my dishes all finished because I needed an empty sink so that was a helpful start to my morning. I also had to give the sink a good scrub down which always feels good!
When researching I found a lot of different ways people wash produce, and I think a lot of it depends on personal preference and budget so if you are not interested in the ways I mention please don’t think they are the only option. I found two different affordable ways to wash produce that I was interested in. The first was with baking soda, and the second was with vinegar. I have tried both, mainly depending on which product I have and have now been doing a produce wash for the last two months.
For the baking soda wash I poured about 4 tablespoons of baking soda into my clean sink and filled it up with cold water. I then put my produce in the wash for about 10 minutes, rinsed everything, and then laid them out to dry completely.
For the vinegar wash I took about 1-2 cups of white vinegar and poured it in my clean sink and filled it up the rest of the way with cold water. My produce then sat for 10 minutes, I rinsed all of it, and laid everything out to dry completely.
There are certain fruits and vegetables that I have heard do not work great in a produce wash, so I have not tried this with small soft berries, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. and just wash those as I use them. I also try to put thin skinned produce like tomatoes or peaches in for only half of the time. It is also extremely important to lay out all of the produce making sure nothing is touching until it is completely dry. This is going to help it all last longer. I like to lay a towel on my counter with one of my cooling racks on top so I can just lay the produce on the cooling rack and the water has a place to go.
I ended up going on Amazon and looking up reusable bags to store produce in so I could have a clean place to put all of my now clean produce. I ended up getting a pack that I have liked so far. They have helped keep my produce fresh at least a little bit longer and I love that I can throw them in my washing machine. I would suggest putting all of them in a garment bag though if you are washing with anything Velcro because a bib caught on one of our bags and looks like it may not hold up great. I will definitely say that if these continue to be as helpful as they were in the first week of buying them I am going to be so glad I bought them. I am seriously always throwing away produce, I just can’t use as fast as I think I’ll be able to. Since I bought the bags though I haven’t had to throw away nearly as much produce
I have seriously loved doing this, it really isn’t that time consuming and gives me a much better idea of how much produce I have in my fridge as I am constantly forgetting what I have bought. I also find that I am much quicker to eat my produce when it has been washed so this is beneficial to save me time, and help my family eat healthier. I enjoy having a bit more piece of mind in knowing that my produce is cleaner than it was.
WELL BALANCED 