Vinegar Produce Wash

Vinegar Produce Wash

Lance told me last night that I’m crazy, but in a “good, non-lazy” way. I’m not sure what laziness has to do with craziness and when I tried to get Lance to expand, I couldn’t really get anything more out of him. I like to believe that I’m crazy because I care. Crazy, caring Kara is better than apathetic Kara who doesn’t care about anything. I'm going somewhere with this, so stay with me.

Anyway. Moving on.

I’ve seen vinegar produce washes come up on several blogs and I’ve been intrigued by them. White vinegar is cheap and is always something that I have on hand. Dumping a little into a bowl of water and then throwing my fruit in the bowl is something that this busy momma can handle. I saw on one blog that a water/vinegar wash can kill up to 98% of bacteria and remove pesticides. While they didn’t site specific research or findings, I can’t help but think that this vinegar-water rinse is better than my previous quick wash under tap water. That, combined with ease of use, was enough to convince me that this was an easy step to make our lives a bit healthier. There are times when I don’t have access to great all-natural produce (or I can’t afford it – why does this automatically make me feel like less of a mom?) and I worry about what “other” things we might be consuming.

I used my gigantic red “Thatsa Bowl” from Tupperware. I dumped in a ¼ of a cup of white vinegar and then added my grapes, strawberries, apples and blueberries. Next I filled the remainder of the bowl with cold water and let everything sit for around 20 minutes before I drained out all the water and then rinsed the contents with cold water. Couldn’t be easier and I was surprised by how scummy the vinegar water was afterwards. This is definitely something that I’ll be doing again in the future with all my produce – cheap and easy – my favorite combination! 

And the reason Lance called me crazy was because he thinks this is an unnecessary step. But because I care deeply, he goes along with it. And because vinegar costs like a dollar. :)

Fruit pictures taken at night in a lurid red bowl are challenging. This is a snapshot of my clean fruit!