Turns Out, We’ve Been Washing Our Fruits and Vegetables Wrong — Expert Shares the Right Method

Every weekly grocery shopping episode ends with people emptying the items out of the grocery bag and starting to give the fresh produce a quick bath. One might think that the water will rinse away impurities settling on the husks, rinds, and flesh of these fruits and veggies. If only it were that easy. Food experts have warned consumers time and time again that their produce might be contaminated with invisible ingredients that would unleash their damaging effects only after the food is eaten. In an interview with Metro, Dr. Deborah Lee from Dr Fox Pharmacy shares why and how the food gets vitiated with harmful substances and what exactly to do about it.

To understand how the produce one buys from a grocery market gets contaminated in the first place, one needs to know the backstory of these fruits and vegetables. The FDA explains that impurities like microorganisms and bacteria can get inside the crops through many open pathways, including stomata and cut surfaces like punctures, wounds, tears, scars, bruises, and splits. The water sprinkled on the crops could contain stubborn pesticides, or maybe the soil itself was contaminated with harmful bacterial organisms through animal droppings, insecticides, or environmental disturbances. Simply washing a bunch of lettuce or rinsing the thick rind of oranges won’t make these invisible organisms unlatch themselves from the produce. 

Instead, Doctor Lee advises that one should first chop the leaves and separate any pieces that might look brownish, bruised, or simply not too good to eat. “This is better than soaking them in a bowl of water where any bacteria are trapped in the bowl,” Lee explained. She also suggested using a blender or a salad spinner to remove any harmful substances lingering in the produce. “The centripetal force removes water and dirt from the leaves. This is important because it also dries the leaves,” said Lee.

For softer fruits, Lee said, one should simply soak them in a basin of cold water, swish about gently, then strain under slow-running water using a colander. According to Real Simple, “Gently rubbing the fruits and vegetables with your hands can also help agitate away contaminants.” Root vegetables, in contrast, can be washed with some vigorous splashes of water. “The skin is high in fibre and an important part of the diet, so it’s better for your health to clean it thoroughly and eat it than cut it off and discard it,” Lee explained.

And although the FDA warns against using soaps, detergents, vinegar, or sodium bicarbonate solutions to clean the produce, many people tend to ditch this warning. Donald Schaffner, food scientist at Rutgers University, believes that it varies from fruit to fruit, from vegetable to vegetable. He confessed that although vinegar is likely to succeed in killing the contaminant bacteria sitting on the flesh of the fruit or the vegetable, he would still prefer to go with plain water for washing.

But while Doctor Lee and Schaffner don’t prefer to use vinegar for washing the produce, chef and nutritionist Lisa Marley believes that it works just as well and is good. “Washing with water alone can help remove some bacteria, but using a vinegar and bicarbonate of soda solution may be more effective at reducing the risk of E. coli contamination,” Marley told Metro. Ultimately, experts think that although washing may not be enough to completely scrub away the impurities from the produce, it can help reduce the intensity of these impurities, thereby reducing the risk of diseases too.