Life is too short to stuff a mushroom, as Shirley Conran once said, but what about scrubbing it free of pesticides? To gauge how much you need to bathe fresh produce, first consider whether it's one of the Dirty Dozen — a list of pesticide-infused shame compiled last year by the Environmental Working group in Washington (available from www.foodnews.org). Based on analysis of more than 100,000 US government pesticide results, it named and shamed peaches, apples and bell peppers as the top three fruit and vegetables to hold the highest levels of pesticide residue.
But don't let this instill a false sense of security — health professionals are adamant that all fresh produce should be cleaned to remove potential pathogens.
This includes organic. In fact, critics of organic produce are at pains to point out that the spinach in the 2007 outbreak of Escherichia coli (E. coli) in Californian was grown using “organic methods.” Perhaps more significantly, it was also processed using industrial methods. Even produce sold as
“pre-washed” needs to be washed.
DISHING THE DIRT
Again, increasingly, this includes organic pre-washed. Organic produce used to wear clods of dirt as a badge of honor, symbolizing its relatively simple and wholesome, traceable journey from plot to plate. This is still the case at farmers' markets, with more local produce, and often with box schemes — and to be fair this is more than
cosmetic. A bit of soil also helps to
preserve the product as it gets to market.
But that depends where your market is. It would be bad economics and against food-hygiene rules to import a large amount of earth with your runner beans. As organic produce has been annexed by big commercial enterprises, it is increasingly scrubbed up in huge pack houses that bring together produce from large numbers of farms for a dousing.
CHLORINE DRESSING ANYONE?
A day in the life of a carrot includes an initial wash, a polish with water to remove grit and a spot of hydro-chilling with cold water before being inspected by mechanical optical graders, where it might not make the grade in any case. More energy often goes into cleaning and packaging fresh produce than goes into actually growing it. This is particularly true of cut greens, such as lettuce, which are washed in ice baths to remove debris, followed by the routine use of chlorine to sanitize bagged salads.
However, rather than providing extra security, pack-house innovations (including chlorine) make me want to empty leafy greens into the sink as soon as I buy them, scrub potatoes and peel carrots. In fact, it actually makes me want to steer clear of pre-washed or pre-bagged at all. I would even use a pH-balanced fruit and vegetable wash that lifts off and kills pathogens on fresh-cut produce. I cannot promise that I will never again moan about scrubbing potatoes, but I'd rather keep veg prep as a kitchen sink drama.
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