How to wash your produce properly

I learned how to wash produce properly at the HMI Nutrition School.

Food-grade hydrogen peroxide is a powerful anti-microbial substance that will help remove bacteria and even pesticides from the surface of the produce.

Additionally, you can add a few drops of a grapefruit food-grade extract (do not confuse it with the grapefruit essential oils).

For all fruits and vegetables, fill the kitchen sink with filtered water. Add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of food-grade hydrogen peroxide solution of 3%. Let all the produce soak in the sink for about 10-15 min.

Drain the water so all the dirt will sink to the bottom.

Then wash and scrub with a vegetable brush, especially all the fruits really well and near their stems.

Also, soak all your herbs and leafy greens as well and use a salad spinner to remove excess water.

Important, note - soaked all your citrus too. Because even if you won’t use lemon skin for example but putting unwashed lemon on a cutting board, then cutting it with a knife will cause contamination of the lemon itself from the dirty skin.

My tip for being efficient with all the washing. Once you come back from your grocery shopping - do not put all the produce in the fridge. Then it is easy to get lazy to pull everything out again the ext day and you will end up washing each item just under the running water, without proper soaking. So I do make sure that everything is getting washed properly before it goes stored in the fridge.