Fruit and Vegetable Wash

Fruits and vegetables we eat are handled by people at several occasions, like, the farms to the storage places to grocery shops. In the farms, these fruits and vegetables are sprayed with various pesticides and in grocery stores, they are carried as merchandise by people. This can pose the threat of food borne diseases due to bacteria like E coli and salmonella. Hence, fruit and vegetable wash becomes essential.

Homemade Fruit and Vegetable Wash

Vinegar makes the best homemade wash for fruits and vegetables. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which kills bacteria and fades out any residue left due to pesticide. Additionally, vinegar makes these produce healthy to eat. The recipe for vinegar wash is as follows.

    * Blend 3 tablespoons of salt and a ½ cup of vinegar with 2 cups of water.
    * You can cleanse fruits or vegetables with this wash or you can even spray it on the produce. For better results, let the wash settle for about 10 minutes on the produce and then rinse it with water.

You can also use lemon juice and baking soda mixed with water and vinegar blend. For cleaning with vinegar and baking soda, simply blend white vinegar and water, 1 cup each, with lemon juice and soda, 2 tablespoons each in a bottle and then spray on the produce. Same as above, let the produce dry and then rinse with water.

There is a natural fruit and vegetable wash you can make really quick to keep germs away from the produce. You can do the spray wash or sink wash with this. Simply add citrus seed extract, also called as grapefruit seed extract, about 20 drops to 32 oz of water. Shake well and spray it on the produce. Grapefruit extract is the liquid produced from the membrane, pulp and seeds of grapefruit. This makes a simple, easy to prepare spray wash for fruits and vegetables. Alternatively, you can use sink wash for fruits and vegetables. Add approximately 20 drops of grapefruit seed extract into a sink filled with cold water and then drench fruits and vegetables in it. In addition to above, there are some simple and safe fruit and vegetable wash recipes. These are short recipes such as ozonated water and lugol's iodine recipe.

    * Add 1 drop of lugol's iodine to a quart of water. Wash vegetables and fruits for about a minute and then rinse with tap water. For fruits and veggies with thick skin, you can scrub with a brush to remove hardened impurities and bacteria.
    * With an economical ozone machine, you can ozonate the water and use it as fruit and vegetable wash. Ozone kills all the contaminants deposited on the fruits and vegetables and helps for stain removal. Simply, lodge ozone bubbler in water bowl for about 7 – 8 minutes and then wash fruits and vegetables with this ozone water.

Easy to Make Fruit and Vegetable Wash

You can prepare your own spray wash by mixing 180 proof grain alcohol with water in equal parts in a bottle. If you are using 75% alcohol, which is 151 proof, keep the proportion as 2 parts of alcohol per 1 part of water. Hydrogen peroxide also works as an excellent fruit and vegetable wash

Mix 3% hydrogen peroxide with 1 tablespoon of natural soap. Spray this solution on fruits and vegetables. The solution foams out, indicating the presence of contaminants such as bacteria, that get killed due to hydrogen peroxide.

This was about fruit and vegetable wash recipe and its importance. Remember, merely washing fruits and veggies with water does not suffice. You never know which kind of contaminants are resting on the produce you buy from the market. So it's always better to wash fruits and veggies with these simple to make washes, like, cleaning with vinegar, to keep food borne diseases at bay.