To think a lot of people dont actually wash fruit?

[TartanDr3ams]

Or are me and 90% of my colleagues gross?

Got some strawberries, blueberries and grapes on my break earlier and just plonked the punnets on my desk and told my workmates to help themselves.. a few people dive in, a quick thanks and back to work.

One colleague just made the monster of all fusses over the fact that ive not washed all said fruit and put into bowls and i quote "its absolutely barbaric that youre expecting people to eat right from the punnet they came in".

Maybe i should wash the fruit.. or maybe if you want to dig into my fruit you can wash it yourself?

It isn't the germs that bother me, and I am a microbiologist. It is the pesticides and other chemicals such as copper sulphate on fruit, particularly on grapes. Only soap or detergent will get this off

Even people who wash fruit don't tend to do it with soap though, do they?

I never wash fruit.

I feel like washing fruit wasn't an issue in the past, but recently there have been more cases of salmonella and e. coli on fresh fruit and veg (especially in the USA which I frequently visit). I wash my produce thoroughly with soap and water.

Please please wash your fruit and veg. I had E. Coli poisoning and ended up in hospital. Environmental health came to talk about what I had eaten in the days leading up to the sickness and determined it was probably some unwashed cucumber. (I know that’s veg, not fruit but still!) Like others, I managed to live my entire life with no problems but it was probably the worst week of my life and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/homehygiene/Pages/How-to-wash-fruit-and-vegetables.aspx

I wash fruit but what I find most disgusting in this circumstance is people using their bare hands to scoop a few berries or strawberries from the punnet. Boak.

I can't stand work place food sharing.

I wash it. I probably kid myself that it's got rid of any nasties. But at least it's got rid of surface dirt.

Do pesticides fall off when it rains then? Because if they don’t how does a quick swizz under the cold tap remove them?

I don’t wash soft fruit as my aunt doesn’t and she is my guru in all things kitchen and food. My 12yo DS grabbed a punnet from the fridge and started to rinse the raspberries. I stopped him, saying that if my DA doesn’t wash fruit, we don’t need to. He walked off muttering something about ‘living like savages’. This from a boy who thinks nothing of grubbing around the garden poking ants!

I didn't.

A friend of mine does lab testing on food. She would tell me which foods had spectacularly failed the tests they'd done. Now I wash all fruit and veg, but particularly fresh herbs as they seemed to fail the tests the most often.

stomach acid

stomach acid

I used to go strawberry picking and you can bet your ass I didn't wash a single one of the strawberries that never managed to get past my gob to make it into the punnet...

Same goes for blackberries and raspberries growing wild. Make sure there's no bugs on/in em and get em eaten before the birds nick em all!

No and I eat things that have fallen on the floor.

I never used too but after a nasty bug in the house I've started to. It doesn't take much to rinse it off. But if somebody offered me a punnet of fruit unwashed I would not for a minute think it was rude

I never wash fruit and the only thing that's made me sick in the last 30+ years is too much alcohol

My sister ate an unwashed peach once, ended up in hospital with an asthma attack. Apparently there was some sort of chemical on it that caused it!

Cold water works by diluting anything on the surface. It's a recognised way of cleansing something ie by diluting. It's good to wash fruit and veg due to chemicals and other bacteria that could be on the fruit. It's especially important though to wash organic fruit and veg as they may have been fertilised with faeces.
Read "Gut" by Gullia Enders. Lots of fascinating information including the above.

I always wash fruit and veg, thoroughly, all over. I even give peeled fruit and veg a rinse.

I'm always a bit shocked realising how many people don't follow basic hygiene procedures - not washing fruit and veg, not using soap to wash their hands after the loo (or not bothering to wash them at all ), not washing hands before eating.

And I've a friend who's a GP and has no soap in her loo

I always wash fruit just before eating it, like a pp I wash fruit I shall peel. I’m not in the U.K. though, and the fruit here tends to be sold in the open air without any kind of packaging.
I also wash cans of drink/bottles to eliminate dust and potential rat pee/cockroach pee etc.

Like the NHS link shows, washing helps get the soil off which can carry bacteria.
I was fruit and veg .. and hate it when people offer me unwashed fruit!

I wash salad vegetables with very diluted bleach, then rinse them well. Sometimes I use a little white vinegar.

I don’t but then I don’t need to worry about people shitting or pissing on my food/their hands as I grow my own. Wash spuds/carrots/nips etc obviously as they grow underground but an apple off my tree? A cucumb from my poly? Nope.

I live life on the edge and I don't wash salad either