How do you sanitise your shopping?

[Lottiebugz22]

Do you wash your tins with soap for 20 seconds? What do you do about bread in paper or meat or plastic cartons? And what about fresh fruit and vegetables?

I e been putting fresh fruit and veg in Milton. The problem is I csnt remember when I bought the tablets. My last child is 8 so hopefully it wasnt for his stuff It still smells so hope its ok

I don't. We are likely to catch this eventually and life really us to short for that . I do wash my hands and disinfect the door handle and car steering wheel, gearstick etc though.

I assume people criticising this approach aren't in high risk groups. I am cleaning my shopping. My mental health is fine. My physical health is where I'm vulnerable.
So.. quarantine stuff that doesn't need refrigeration.
Throw away outer packaging where possible.
Wash plastics and tins in soapy water, then spray with dettol.
Wipe over thin paper packaging with soapy water.
That's it!

We have a septic tank (like almost everyone in this village) so we can't blitz everything in sight with bleach/anti-bacterial detergent. We're just washing our hands with soap and water on a regular basis, but that's on the understanding that we're all fairly robust.

We don't. Just wash hands after unpacking

Dip in Milton

I don't, I just wash my hands after unpacking it.

I don't.

Some of this is so over the top, unless you are especially vulnerable. People will end up more ill because their immune systems won't be able to cope.

There's a reason eggs are sold unwashed... you should not wash them until just before cooking.

I don’t. I wash my hands thoroughly. There is a vast difference between the virus being detected on surfaces after 3 days to the virus surviving in transmittable quantities. Also...why on earth is everyone using anti-bacterial products?? This is a virus!! anti-bac will do naff all!! Same goes for dettol by the way. Hot soapy water, bleach or 60%+ alcohol are the only way you’re going to kill the virus and I’m not prepared to dip my hot cross buns in any of those.

MissDollyMix - good point. Long article in the .... (forgotten name of specific broadsheet) about necessity of using soap, alcohol or dilute bleach to kill the virus.

Don't use antibac. Doing more harm than good...

I’m with the cleaners on this thread. Hot soapy water with bleach added. Everything gets wiped.

Soft fruits are washed in hot soapy water and then rinsed. Taste fine. I also quarantine stuff.

If l go to shops, I wear gloves with credit card in pocket. Touch as little as poss in shops, bags in boot of car. Wipe steering wheel etc.

Bags placed on table, emptied, binned outside immediately, all food washed, then table. All done in gloves. Gloves saved and rewashed. Car wiped. bin wiped.

I also quarantine all post and parcels for minimum of 24 hours

Fruit and veg (like courgettes) get taken out of any packaging, washed in soapy water then rinsed. Packaging immediately discarded.

Things like salad leaves that come packaged, I wash down the packaging with soapy water, rinse and drain before storing in the fridge.

Packaged meat - packaging thrown away and meat placed into container in fridge or goes into freezer bags.

Store cupboard items like packaged biscuits - packaging discarded, biscuits stored in their inner wrapper.

Eggs - go into an older cardboard container. I don't wash them, no real need. The current container goes into the porch to 'decontaminate' via quarantine.

Jars, juice bottles, milk bottles - all get washed with soapy water and rinsed.

tissue boxes go into the porch to decontaminate. Ditto anything else that can't be unpacked and doesn't require the cold.

After all that, wash down kitchen surfaces with soapy water and wash hands.

I don't want to catch this virus as I have an autoimmune disease, so I think it's worth taking these precautions for my peace of mind.

I don’t. I wash my hands once I’ve put it away.

Appreciating that, for some genuinely vulnerable people, some additional precautions might be sensible, there are clearly some people who are going a little bit batshit. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at some of these responses.

I don't and I am pretty sure my chickens would think I'd gone mad if I started washing their eggs!

I wash my hands.

"I've been putting fresh fruit and veg in Milton".
Why? Arent you worried the Milton will soak through the skin, or remain on the skin, and then you eat it?

I don't! Just wash my hands frequently throughout the day especially after handling food items.

I also quarantine all post and parcels for minimum of 24 hours

Do you then quarantine the contents of said post and parcels for a further 24 hours after they've been opened?

Surely it makes far more sense to open the items, discard the envelopes/packaging immediately and wash your hands well? I can't imagine that having potentially infected items hanging around your house for longer than necessary is a good idea?

How long has a courgette (or pepper, or onion, or other packaged vegetable) been contained in protective plastic before it reaches the fridge of an average Briton? If it's been picked in Spain, packaged, stored in a chilled unit, loaded onto a lorry, driven to an airport, flown to Britain, unloaded, stored in another chilled unit, sent to a distribution centre, driven to the store, kept in a storeroom, then put on the shelves. That's days, even for the freshest vegetables. The packaging might have been handled by lots of different hands, but the vegetables inside are surely safe enough not to need additional washing by this point.

Why is the risk considered small, does anyone know? It seems like a likely chain of events that would lead to getting poorly, possibly.

I get my dog to lick everything.

Why is the risk considered small, does anyone know

Because even though the virus is detectable on surfaces after a certain amount of time, it degrades further and further hour by hour. The risk of there actually being enough virus to infect you is negligible.

Then there's the fact that if you wash your hands as often as you should be, even if there was enough virus on a package to cause infection, you'd kill it with a hand-wash anyway.

I sing Happy Birthday to it. Twice.

@JoeySpecial I like your style, I might give that a go too.