To not wash my fruit and veg before cooking/eating?

[AmserGwin]

Inspired by the bin thread. How many of you actually wash your fruit and/or veg before eating or cooking it? I never have, do people really do this?

The organic stuff I only rinse if it's visibly dirty, or if there could be bugs hiding in it, like lettuce. Non-organic, I always wash because of pesticides.

I'll rinse anything that has very obviously still got soil on it, so leeks and mushroom etc. I don't wash apples before I eat then though, I'm not sure a rinse under a cold tap would actually do much?

Always soak in a bowl of cold water and then rinse and peel. It what my mum and gran used to do, so I just followed. However, I remember reading about the importance of washing before peeling in What to Expect the First Year when teenage pfb was a baby, so I think that influenced me as well.

I don't all the time I'm also a firm believer ur body needs to build immunity

Can you build immunity against pesticides? Genuine question; I suppose you could build a tolerance.

I love the build up immunity argument. You don't build up immunity to worms or salmonella you just get them! My kids rarely get sick either and we wash everything and keep our house clean. By some people's logic we should be dead most people build up immunity regardless, housing worms and eating bird shit doesn't make anyone stronger.

My DM washes apples, then peels them, then rinses them under the tap (again). Can't be too careful I suppose.

I, on the other hand, CBA with all the faffing and eat things as they come. We grow fruit and often just pick it off the plant and eat it. But I also eat supermarket fruit and veg without washing it.

apparently organic veg has higher levels of 'gut' bacteria, as fertilised with manure rather than industrial fertiliser.

anyway, anything that's not peeled is washed. esp organic produce.

I doubt rinsing under the cold tap removes much.

Can you build immunity against pesticides? Genuine question; I suppose you could build a tolerance.

You theoretically could if the pesticides have a shape that is antigenic, meaning that it can be seen by your immune system, more specifically by antibodies on the surface of white blood cells. However I believe that pesticides are small organic molecules (correct me if I'm wrong about that) so in practice you wouldn't actually make an immune response against them.

Yes since I was pregnant.

Bundao
You probably do build up a bit of immunity against Salmonella, which is one of the reasons why Salmonella poisoning is so much worse if you are immune compromised. Agree that it doesn't seem to stop anyone getting it though, maybe it's all a question of severity (or that the toxin is so fast acting that you can't get your immune memory cells onto it quickly enough)

I rinse under cold water, soak, then rinse again. Herbs are then rinsed off again and soaked and I then pick off the ones floating to use.

I've seen the customers who handle fruit in the supermarket. I always wash it unless peeling it.

Who wants sneeze on their apples?

Never unless it had obvious earth on it

I rinse pretty thoroughly after a student summer job picking fruit - I was lucky in that I lived close enough to pop home at lunchtime to pee, but not everyone else did! Not that they pee'd on the fruit but there was no where to wash hands..

When fruit and veg is picked does it go straight into the punnets?

I assumed it was rinsed before being packaged

And I never wash anything I'm going to cook- the boiling water kills much more than a rinse under the Tap.

Oh I do wash leaks because of the soil issue.

I pull lettuce apart and give the leaves a good rinse then dry with a clean tea towel, I was really ill with salmonella once and it was traced back to a salad I'd eaten. My doctor told me there are some nasty bugs living in the soil and even packs of pre washed salad should be rinsed. I do the same for cabbage, you don't know what creepy crawlers are hiding amongst the leaves. In peeled fruit is also given a blast under the tap.

No, I cba.

Fruit and veg ( unless organic) is sprayed with a cocktail of really nasty chemicals. Insecticides, fertilisers, growth promoters, anti fungals, many of which have been linked to ill health, even cancer. Google it.
So yes, I wash all my fruit and veg.

I do.

I didn't used to, but I now teach in a company that makes bio agents for agriculture and when my not washing stuff came up, they were horrified. They gave me a shit load of this stuff to wash all my produce in, and I do.

They said in a pinch to use a drop of washing up liquid and then rinse and rinse and rinse. Cos (according to them) rinsing alone without a washing agent to make the nasties and dirt "unstick" isn't very efficient.

Cancer research U.K. says no pesticide link to cancer at all.

www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer/food-controversies#food_controversies4

Yes, I wash all fruit and veg. I once had a landlord who pumped the septic tank into his orchard, I stopped eating apricots that year....

I am a gardener.
Some weedkillers are carcinogenic. I don't imagine insecticides are good for you. I put horse manure on the veg patch.

Here the farmers (not a veg growing area) drench the whole field in weedkiller then once the grass has died down, plough it and seed it for the next crop. I imagine that must happen in fields of veg too sometimes.

If you have no bugs or slugs on your veg you can probably assume it has been sprayed with bug and slug killer and also chemicals to discourage disease.

So it's not just a bit of soil you are washing off, if you do wash stuff, it's everything else!