The Best Way to Wash Fruit and Vegetables

Grabbing a piece of fruit is usually good for your health. However, as more information comes available, it is being found that it can be a little tricky finding the safest fruit. Many farmers will use pesticides on their fruit. A few common misconceptions are that organic and domestic fruits and vegetables are the safest. However, organic fruits and vegetables still have the chance of getting contaminated from nearby fields. Also, additional research has found that domestic fruit and vegetables might be at higher risk than imported fruits and vegetables.

Because of this problem, many companies, seized the opportunity to come up with products that effectively clean the pesticides off fruit. For example, Proctor and Gamble came out with a new washing product. However, it was quickly found that the product was no more effective at sanitizing the fruit than tap water. As time went on, several other products came out that claimed that they would effectively clean pesticides from fruit and vegetables – each of which was quickly disproved.

After all of the time and money, a very effective method was finally discovered. If you soak potatoes in a 5% acetic acid solution, 100% of the pesticides are removed. The solution is very simple – plain white vinegar. The issue here is that over time, this would cost a lot of money.

It was then found that there was another effective, cheaper solution. A 10% salt solution appears to work just as well, maybe even better.  This is as effective as vinegar and cheaper in the long term.  Just remember to wash off all the salt.

Unfortunately, right now, there isn’t much that can be done for other products like meat. You are better off buying organic for these products.