It sounds mundane, but it's important and it really does make a different not to skip out on washing your fruits and vegetables.
Sadly, the fruits and vegetables bought in most supermarkets these days are coated in chemicals through fertilisers & pesticides that make farmers lives easier and their turnover greater... However, for our guts - they can cause havoc and lead to problems such as leaky gut, hormone imbalances, inflammation and more.
Another reason for washing them... is to remove the dirt which inevitably is often left on the outside of our root veggies. Correct me if I', wrong but I don't think I know anyone who willingly likes to eat dirt!?
It is also worth noting, that approximately 48 million people suffer from food related illnesses each year in the US, and scrubbing your fruits + vegetables can protect you from these common food-borne illnesses.
The easiest way to make sure that you are protecting yourself from the nasties is to be doubly sure that your not ingesting them. By washing the produce as soon as you get home from the shops, your food will be ready to prep when you need it and all the cleaning will have been done in one swoop.
If you buy your food from a farmers market, it will often be less likely to have grown with fertilisers etc. but you can never be sure and it is better to be safe than sorry.
When a bag of spinach or salad says 'ready to eat' or 'pre washed' this is a big red warning sign... what they wash the veggies with can be chlorinated (yes, what is used to clean swimming pools) and as you can imagine - no good for our tummies.
Gently running your produce under warm water is the least you can do, it takes so little time and you are protecting yourself from the possibility of chemical build up in your system (make sure to wash your hands properly first - something we are all professionals at after Covid-19). If you're really cautious and want to use more than warm water, using baking soda and a vegetable brush is the next, least harmful yet effective way to get the job done.
Some might argue that using specific soaps is good, but I'd rather not take down a side of soap with my salad either. There haven't been enough studies done to confirm that these aren't more harmful than the pesticides themselves.
Happy veg scrubbing!
