Washing vegetables AIBU to ask what's normal

They're probably American.

"As a nation" they all shoot each other and their produce is bathed in dangerous chemicals so they'd die in minutes if they didn't decontaminate it.

Nah, root veg gets any mud rinsed off, but anything I'm cooking I don't care. Salad is far higher risk, I don't eat a lot of It anyway. Lettuce I'd discard the outside leaves anyway.
I've never bothered and never been ill.
I do mostly eat veg bought locally not supermarket stuff though

I don't wash them - I'm with pp who say they never get sick from it, so why would I bother.

For those of you that do - what do you wash with? Because if it's just water, what do you think that's achieving? And if it's with soap, what soap, and how much extra time does that take?

Anything cooked will have any bacteria killed, and most of it is washed/rinsed in the process of being packaged up for sale anyway...

I wash everything that's not being peeled.

For people worried about pesticides on their foods - there are mandatory withholding periods (between when a pesticide is applied to a crop and when it is allowed to be harvested) which allows for chemicals to break down and residue levels to decrease. Also, pesticides that are used on food crops today (not so much the ones used pre 2001, when the regs were different), break down rapidly in sunlight or water, so they don't make their way into the food chain.

Fruit and veg are often kept in cold storage before they make it to the supermarket shelves - nothing is going to be active by the time it makes it to a domestic kitchen.

I wash leeks, spring onions and anything with mud on.

I dont wash them at all unless they have soill on

@SWLondonLurker I totally agree! And we are not 3 years out of a pandemic!
I went bowling the other night and people were eating nachos then fingers in the bowling balls then licking salsa off them - I find it so shocking!

Never washed anything …maybe rinsed a muddy spud

I wash mine as it comes from the farm shop and has visible dirt on it. Run it under a hot tap and go at it with a potato scrubber.

However if I ever get any from the supermarket I never wash it. I don't think about the chemicals etc at all, I'm only bothered if it's visible dirt. Might be weird but hey ho.

I wash everything (with water, not with and special rinses)

Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Well done.

YABU to ask Mumsnet what's normal in relation to anything hygiene related.

There is no normal and you definitely won't find it amongst the hygiene obsessives on here.

I rinse off obvious dirt that would make it unpleasant to eat, but don't generally indulge in the sort of cleaning that would be effective at removing any germs and pesticides that are there.

After all, produce is grown in dirt and is out in the open for all sorts of creatures to crawl all over. The fact that the person that pulled it out of the ground might not have sprayed their hands with bleach before they picked it is the least of your worries.

Hard agree with this - maybe it's because in the US it's much more common to get salmonella, ecoli etc from unwashed vegetables (because the risk of cross contamination is higher), but I wouldn't dream of eating vegetables raw without washing them. Hadn't even thought of handlers picking their noses and now I'm thoroughly grossed out.

Yes EVERYONE in Britain is EXACTLY the same with their hygiene 🙄

I wash all fruit/veg OP. I don’t care about the dirt (cos I’m a filthy Brit apparently) but there are too many nasty chemicals for my liking.

The only time I’ve ever washed fruit or veg is when my potatoes have visible dirt on them.

I always wash fruit and veg. It’s basic hygiene. I don’t think it necessarily removes much in the way of pesticides but it does remove any grit or grime hidden in the leaves, washes away faecal bacteria from people who’ve handled it and flushes out any insects or larvae.

I think it’s something we’ve lost as food has become more processed. My grandmother always washed veg and often soaked it in a pan of water with a little salt to get rid of bugs. Now our veg comes pre trimmed in sealed plastic packaging and we use more pesticides. It looks clean - you rarely see mud on veg unless you buy from a farm shop. I still wash it.

My ex’s entire family don’t wash grapes and you can tell from a single bite. Washing must be removing something!

Ah I'm not British either, maybe that's it.

I am a bit shocked that on one hand someone is considering buying something to remove pesticides from products they're going to cook (and therefore kill bacteria) and yet not wash things that they aren't going to cook. I always wash the stuff that isn't getting cooked and am less worried about the stuff that's going to be brought to a high temperature so it gets a quick rinse to remove any obvious physical contamination like animal hair, soil, etc and that's it!

She's dutch guys 😂

Never even think about washing them to be honest. I'm 41 and in reasonable health (I have an auto immune condition which as far as I know has no links to unwashed fruit and veg).
I grew up in the countryside though, picking blackberries straight off the bush to eat and drinking water out of the same stream as the cows and horses....there is clearly no hope for me!

This made me laugh. 🤣

No, but I’m from a country that is generally (and not unfairly) considered extremely blunt. You’re not far off.

Never wash fruit or veg unless it’s very dirty and I’m not peeling it. I’ve never got ill from it and especially for vegetables I’m usually cooking them which would kill most germs!

It's not nasty but a little blunt...since you like a national stereotype, are you German?

Anyway, I never wash fruit or veg unless it has obvious mud on it.

but recently I've been thinking it's a distraction from all the UPFs we're eating DIRECTLY in BULK