Washing vegetables AIBU to ask what's normal

[Annabella92]

So I remember a few years back there was an ecoli scare and for a couple of hours the theory was it was from Spanish cucumbers, so we were reminded then we should be washing our fruit and veg. In the wholefoods shop you can buy special rinses to rinse off pesticides from your produce. My Dad always said that these are designed to withstand rain and watering do the idea that a quick rinse will do anything is ridiculous. I've also heard many tales of fruitpickers scratching their bums and noses and handling our unwashed goods.

So obviously I think about this a fair bit!!! What is normal? What do you do? When I'm cooking for my family I tend to be a very thorough fruit and veg washer. But if I'm making a quick sandwich I'll not rinse the Iceberg, I might give the tomato a quick rub on my sleeve and I'll eat blueberries out the punnet while I'm driving.

What do you do? Which do you worry about more, bacteria or pesticides or none?

Not American. Happy to say that we do none of those things. 🤣

The reason a lot of people in the UK don't wash vegetables/fruit is because they are mostly sold prewashed anyway and look in edible shape. If they looked as if they were covered in muck then people would probably wash them more.

I don't know why they recommend washing them again. Probably to get rid of any pesticide traces and any traces of dirt not removed by the first wash.

I would rinse actual mud off veg but otherwise don't bother washing fruit and veg. Always have organic where possible and eat the skins for roughage. The model I have in my head is that human bodies are well adapted to fighting germs and that being exposed to germs is absolutely necessary to grown a healthy gut biome and overall immune system

In my lifetime, I've notice increasing attempts to try and create sterile environmental even for fit and healthy people, which IMHO has lead directly to the rise in allergies and weakened immune systems

For myself and my family, always avoid sterile environments and have no truck with routine use of anti-bacterial substances in the home. We are all pretty healthy and seldom get colds etc. don't routinely supplement either but eat plenty of real, whole veg.

Obviously, were I caring for someone with a serious illness and/or compromised immune system, I would be answering very differently.

I wash apples before I eat them. I don't wash things I'm peeling. I do wash potatoes that are going to be cooked in their jackets. I don't wash anything that is going to be boiled such as broccoli or cauliflower. I do wash salad and use a spinner.

Did you just ignore the other part of their post?

"As a nation, your attitude towards general hygiene is…interesting."

I don't wash (or peel unless is strictly necessary) the majority of fruit or veg.

I might rinse some berries, just to make sure there's not anything lurking inside the raspberries etc.

I'll rinse if there's mud (or rub it off if its just a bit).

I don't even understand washing if you're cooking - surely any germs wouldn't survive the cooking process?

I don't much care what other people do. Except one friend who I saw meticulously peel the skin from a chicken and wash it about 7 times. I thought she was nuts, but I understand its cultural.

Oh god...... what a faff
Never wash
55 years old
Never been sick
3 boys survived also

Oh, goodness. Sorry I missed all this furore. I was interested in why someone would say this nasty thing. Why is it nasty? It should be clear I think but if not, let's break down this nasty sentence.

[As a nation, your attitude] <== stereotyping and generalising wildly
[towards general hygiene is] <== generalising out from washing veg to all forms of hygiene
[…interesting.] <== snide elision - we are are all dirty bastards, unlike her, and she is disgusted by us, but importantly she wants us to know

So I was really wondering what she gets out of telling everyone this in this snide, covertly hostile way. I've noticed this on threads on MN. If you think [x,y] people are so awful, why do you also want them to know this. It's interesting to me. So I've been asking from time to time, when I see these very tamped down nasty comments, what makes people want to say them. It's not just this person, it's all over MN, and sometimes they are very BIG horrible comments like people saying they shouldn't have had kids or diagnosing them with personality disorders, but often they are more tamped down, just expressions of suppressed, bitter hostility. And I wonder, what is going on with people when they act like this. I'm really interested. I actually do want to know!

How the hell do worms get in the birth canal from eating food? 😂😂

Germs build immunity. Never washed supermarket produce, but straight from a farm where there is still soil on I obviously would.

Of course I wash vegetables before using them. Worst case scenario, it is unnecessary. There's no downside of washing them and potentially unpleasant downsides of not washing them. Sure, there will be people who never wash things before they eat them and largely get away with it, but in discussions like this the view is skewed because by definition the argument is between people who wash and survived versus people who don't wash and survive. The people who didn't wash and died can't contribute.

How do you wash leeks? I recently discovered I must have been eating tonnes of mud for years. Horrifying

🤣🤣

I think if people had died from eating unwashed fruit and veg we would very much know about it!

After they're sliced, I put them in a colander and give them a good swill around. Bits of mud get stuck in the layers, towards the top.

Rinsing something under a tap will not remove or kill any bacteria or pesticides.

It is an observation though, why be so defensive?

I live in Europe but am British. I observe all sorts..

When I visit the UK I do see some odd things, including not washing fruit or veg, animals all over the furniture, and washing up bowls of soapy water where nothing is ever rinsed. It amuses me.

But then I am someone who generally lets people wear shoes in my home. 😳

Ditto the clothes and bedsheets.

I lived in far east for a time in 70s. (Service family) We were advised to wash all salad/veg in milton solution then rinse with cold boiled water before eating. Reason given was that produce was thought to be grown with human faeces as fertilizer never knew if this was true.

This is the kind of behaviour I am referring to. 😂

I could never ever put bed sheets on my bed that weren't washed.

I assume you wash underwear though?

🙄

I eat a lot of fruit and veg. Don't wash anything.

No! My thought is that if they come in the packet, it's unlikely that somebody has had their grubby mitts all over them. If I was buying individual knickers that weren't in a plastic packet, perhaps but then again maybe not.

Typing it out makes me think I perhaps should.

It didn't take long did it?

There wasn’t any furore. People just didn’t agree with you that it was a nasty comment. Likening it to saying people shouldn’t have children or diagnosing them with personality disorders is rather bizarre.

There was nothing snide or covert about my comment. If anything, as has been stated and acknowledged, it was extremely blunt. ‘Suppressed bitter hostility’, you say? 🤣

Based on this comment, you (you, personally, not the nation, for the sake of clarity) appear to be given to dramatic overstatement.