Washing vegetables

[OpportunityKnocks]

How thoroughly you wash your vegetables before cooking/eating them?

I give them all a quick rinse under the tap so they all get wet, but I wouldn't say that I worry too much. For instance, mushrooms probably still have bits of dirt on them

AIBU to not pay too much attention to washing them?

I rinse spinach as it can be gritty,didn't do it once and never again.I scrub veg like carrots and potatoes if the have soil on(as I rarely peel them).
May rinse lettuce picked at home to remove baby slugs but the rest,no.

You should definitely wash grapes thoroughly I had a very leggy spider crawl out of a pack when I was washing them a couple of years ago .

I read that soaking fruit / veg in water with a bit of vinegar in it before rinsing was the best way to remove pesticides etc. Not sure how long or what concentration, but apparently it takes quite a lot of the crap off.

I read somewhere, ages ago, that most fruit and veg these days are sprayed with systemic insecticides rather than just insecticides that just sit on the surface of the food product/plant.
It is therefore, drawn up, via the roots, into the plant and has a long term action.
Anything just sprayed on the surface, would be washed of by the rain and rendered useless.
Systemic spray, if rained on, will wash into the soil around the plant and still be effective.
Ergo, washing will not remove insecticides.

I scrub them with a vegetable brush or metal scourer.

MN is hilarious.

Shower several a day.
Change pyjamas daily.
Change beds practically as often.
Don't let people shit in the toilet.
Scrub your house to within an inch of its life.

Wash food you are going to injest that is covered in pesticides/manure/dirt/been handled by many, many people?
No thanks.

I think the former latter group all do the former.

Everyone else does neither!

I change my nightie daily and wash fruit and vegetables. I don't do any of the others!

I wash them under the tap but now wondering if they need soaking. I'm absolutely not a hygiene freak but I thought this was part of basic food safety?

I assume cooking them in boiling water removes far more' whatever ' then rinsing under a tap

^^ This. The only veg I really pre wash is courgettes because I grate them into soup and they often feel a bit 'dusty'.

But then I don't do any of Elizas list either as I am completely filthy by MN standards. And yet I'm never ill.

I don't wash any fruit or veg.

I'm in forrin and fresh veg is dirty/sandy so needs a good wash or we have gritty soup...
in uk I hardly ever washed veg before cooking (apart from leeks that are always sandy inside)

I rinse everything, even prewashed veg like carrots or potatoes. I just imagine the picking process as people having to work hard somewhere on a field, short break, go for a piss somewhere on the side, get back to picking .... boak...

I was loose veg. Like courgettes and peppers that others may have touched with fairy liquid. But I don’t wash anything else.

I wash everything.

I have seen people picking in strawberry fields for example and they pee on a random bush when they need to go. So they could have pee, old hand germs, dribble, dirt, pesticides on them. I grow a lot myself also, using no chemicals etc but would still wash in case our or a local cat peed on them, and general dirt.

i worked in food micro a few years ago.
Rinsing is not going to do anything that boiling, etc won’t. And I would advise cooking your vegetables because food safety testing does not test the whole batch just a small sample.
And we would always find E. coli and Listeria (pathogenic strains) on things you wouldn’t expect and wouldn’t necessarily eat cooked.

I dont wash anything

Redred, that's interesting. So do you not eat any raw fruit or veg? That can't be healthy.
Washing with fairy makes no difference than as it doesn't kill bacteria like E-coli anyway.

Yes to washing salads and fruits, but no to washing anything that is going in a pan of boiling water, unless actually lumps of soil.