How To Wash Pesticides Off Your Fruit & Veggies

Since summer is rapidly approaching, and thus the season of plentiful cherries, nectarines and peaches has arrived, I started looking into how exactly to wash pesticides off my fruit. Since those three delicious fruits that I just mentioned are all on the EWG’s Dirty Dozen, I decided to start looking into how to clean them the best I can. After paying $3.50 a lb for non-organic cherries at the grocery store, I realized that keeping my family eating organic cherries, peaches and nectarines probably isn’t going to happen this summer. Not only are they are hard to find to start with, the prices are inhibiting to say the least. If I do manage to find some, I will be doing a price comparison. Until then, we are eating those three of the dirty  dozen.

A quick review of the list:

The only ones that are plentiful and cheap on that list in my area are apples, which I have been able to buy organic cheaply for years now, celery, carrots, lettuce and pears. Superstore has those in stock and the prices are barely noticeably higher. However, cherries, nectarines and peaches I have not found yet, but will be venturing to my local organic store to see the prices and availability.

So how to clean them when you can’t buy organic?

1. Peel, peel and peel some more after a good soak and rinse. When I couldn’t find organic apples, fully knowing that apples are the worst offender in my house since they are so plentiful and in season all year, I washed, then peeled them. We ate peeled apple slices instead of whole apples. Sure you miss the fiber in the skin, but I just cannot stomach apples anymore unless they are organic, knowing how bad the pesticides on the skin are. Also, carrots are easily peeled, pears, peaches and nectarines not so much, but it is possible.And if you are lucky, your kids will hate the fuzzy skin on peaches anyways, and you have no choice but to take it off. Any fruit that has a waxy coating should be peeled, as its almost impossible to wash it off, for example, apples. We’ve all felt those awful, waxy coating on apples at one time or another.

2. Scrub veggies and fruit with a vegetable brush, as much as you can using cool water after soaking.

3. You can use a commercial fruit cleaner, but in my opinion, that’s possibly just adding other contaminants to your fruit.Fruit/veggies can be porous and just absorb these chemicals.

4. Make your own produce cleanser. I use either a vinegar wash or a salt water soak. For fruit like cherries, I soak them in either mixture and swish them around to clean them.This is easily done while doing something else in the kitchen at the same time, let them soak for 20 minutes and give them the occasional swirl. This also is great for vegetable like cauliflower and broccoli, they need to be soaked to get all the grime out of their crevices.  Then discard the water and run them under water to rinse off. I love knowing that vinegar or salt are not harmful to us if there is a little left on the produce, but honestly I have never had salty or vinegar tasting cherries and I am eating some cherries after a salt wash this very moment, boy, the sacrifices I make for writing articles.

5. Eat the inner layers of produce like lettuce and onions, discard the outer layers that would have more pesticides on them.

6. Remember to take the little stickers off and clean under them!

7. For delicate fruit like raspberries, and soak and gentle swirl in one of the washes works wonders. Just be gentle and they won’t fall apart, then rinse in a colander.

8. Always rinse the outside of your melons before you cut them, to remove all toxins on the outside that might be transferred onto the melon’s flesh.

Here’s a couple recipes for homemade wash/spray:
#1 – Soak/wash
50/50 dilution of white vinegar and water. Soak for 10-20 minutes.
Rinse well. (This will not work for mushrooms, they will absorb it! Just rinse)

#2 Salt Soak
1 tsp salt to 1 cup of water, soak for 10-20 minutes. Rinse well.

#3 – Spraying
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice to 2 Tablespoons of baking soda with 1 cup
of water. Put this mixture in a sprayer bottle. After spraying, let
produce sit for a few minutes. Rinse well.

#4 Spraying
Mix 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar,
and 1 cup cold tap water in a spray bottle. Use to spray and wipe.

As you can see, you can mix the above ingredients however you want, the basic point being that lemon juice,vinegar, salt and baking soda are all natural ingredients with cleansing properties, with no danger to us if there is residue left on them. With all the above information, you are truly armed to cleanse those fuits and veggies, since most are commonly found right in your own kitchen cupboards.

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