Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Kitchen: An Inexpensive Veggie/Fruit Wash

I would love to eat only organic fruits and veggies, but it isn't always feasible with budget or accessibility. So, I have found a simple, natural & inexpensive method using sea salt for ridding my produce of pesticides. I find that if I do this right when I get home from shopping, we are more likely to eat the foods (because they are all clean and ready for consumption), and we have less waste.

First, I bought an inexpensive wash tub. While I do clean my sink from time to time, it feels weird to clean it out with chemicals right before I dump in my veggies that I am trying to rid of chemicals, so buying a tub was my solution. I only use it for this purpose and I rinse it out after each use.

When I first start to unload my groceries, I fill the tub (usually halfway) with water and I add in sea salt (approximately 1 tsp sea salt for each cup of water). After two minutes (long enough for the salt to dissolve), I briefly rinse/scrub my produce to get any visible dirt off and then I drop it into the tub to soak while I finish putting groceries away.

For thin-skinned produce, I soak around 2 minutes; for thick-skinned, I give it 5. Then, I simply rinse well, drain, and store. I like to store in Hefty "Fresh Extend" produce bags. Its important to make sure produce is dry when you store it to keep it fresh longer.



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