You’ve likely seen those bottles of produce wash spray at the store, but they often come at a steep price. Here’s how to myo fruit & vegetable wash for about 25¢!
Washing your fresh produce when you pick it from the garden or purchase it at farmer’s markets or your local grocery may seem like common sense to you; Very few people like the feeling of gritty celery or greens, after all.
While it’s wonderful to wash fruits and veggies to bring out the best flavor of the fresh produce, it’s more important to help your family avoid various food-borne illnesses. Unfortunately, those cutesy little bottles of fruit and veggie “wash” aren’t very budget-friendly, but they don’t need to be, you can make your own for under .25 cents!
Recently while grocery shopping, I witnessed a woman picking over vegetables, stop, cover her mouth and nose with her hand, sneeze twice, and then pick up another green pepper without so much as attempting to wipe her hand off.
I already vigorously wash fruits and vegetables when I purchase them, but seeing her sneeze and then handle the vegetables made me wonder how many people still don’t!?
Which Fruits and Vegetables to Wash
Fresh vegetables can easily become tainted with residual pesticides and pathogens on the surface. Avoiding potential illness is relatively simple, wash your fruits and veggies before consuming or cutting them. It is equally important to wash all fruits and vegetables regardless of whether the skin/rind is edible.
While you may not feel it’s important to wash a melon, for example, cutting it can easily transfer bacteria from the inedible rind into the edible fruit inside. The same is true for grapefruits, oranges, avocados, etc.
Here are several simple, inexpensive homemade fruit and vegetable washes you can make in your own kitchen.
MYO Fruit & Vegetable Wash
In a clean spray bottle combine the following:
1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
2 TBS baking soda
2 TBS lemon juice
Mix well. Spray fresh fruits and vegetables generously, allow the mixture to remain on them for about 5 minutes, rinse off with cold, clean water. Store unused spray in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Simple Fruit & Veggie Soak:
1/2 cup vinegar
3 Tbs salt
1 Very Large bowl, half full of cold water
Combine the vinegar and salt, mixing well until the salt dissolves. Add to a large bowl of water. Soak fruit and veggies (uncut) in the mix for 10 minutes, remove and pat dry.
Additional Tips:
- When washing, pay particular attention to the stem areas of fruits where it is easier for dirt and pesticides to accumulate.
- Root Vegetables should be soaked for several minutes
- Leafy Greens require approximately 2 minutes of Soaking for best results- you’ll notice that this makes your greens more crisp and fresh tasting as well!
- If you don’t have any vinegar or prefer not to use vinegar here is a homemade veggie wash spray without vinegar.
i use both of these mixes and it has saved me lots of money! :piggy: thanks so much for posting!
i volunteer at my church for a food ministry. we got a truck load of fresh fruit and veggies each week and my family brings home a ton of fresh food each week that would otherwise be wasted. i wonder if i should be washing the items before i put them away or just as i am taking them out to use?
if i wash them first, won’t it cause some items to go bad quicker, such as berries? what about mushrooms, can you wash them, they get so slimy!
Most veggies should be washed just prior to eating/use especially Mushrooms & berries. Some veggies are okay to wash ahead of time, like lettuce, celery, green peppers (if you dry them really well afterwards!) We usually use a salad spinner to get the excess water off.
i’ve been looking for this…thank you..
so glad to see this here!! thank you.
bookmarking…
i need this:stars:nthanks
these sound great! thank you so much !:23_30_109[1]:
this is such a $$ saver! thanks for these wonderful recipes.
i work in the produce dept at walmart, after seeing the waxes they put on cucumbers and white powder on the oranges lemons and limes. i would suggest to all, to use this fruit and veggie cleaner. i am for sure gonna use this one 🙂
I too also work at Walmart sometimes covering shifts in the produce department.
Customers need to stop taste testing grapes, cherries and any other fruit before buying, taking home and washing. If they had any idea how much pesticide is put on these produce items, maybe they would stop.
I used to drive transport in the fresh produce division picking up produce sometimes right out of the fields in California bound for Canada. Broccoli for instance would be packed in ice as it was loaded into trailers.
A very toxic pesticide fogging spray would be sprayed onto the produce prior to shutting the trailer doors. Now, if the load is too heavy to get across the truck scales, doors would be opened again and more produce would be removed from the trailer to bring the total weight down. Upon opening the transport trailer doors the pesticide fumes that would escape would knock you back off your feet.
A skunk smells wonderful compared to these fumes.
So, rinse, rinse and rinse again to get those toxins off. These produce pesticides have cancer agents and who knows what else that will eventually kill you. So, please don’t nibble on produce before you pay for it and take it home to wash.
For heavens sake, you know what grapes and cherries taste like.
i can’t wait to use this recipe for our fruits and veggies. even when i buy organic, i still wash it thoroughly. now i can save some money doing it.
thanks!
thank you very much for this helpful recipe! i am mixing some up now! we eat lots of fruit and veggies.
wow thank you this is very cool!
in the first recipe it calls for lemon, this is something i personally can’t use, what is it’s purpose? do you think it will work as well without the lemon juice added?
thank you for posting these hints for washing fruits and vegetables as i use both of them on a daily basis and just using water never seemed to be enough.luckily i also grow my own lemons.:2cents:
i realize there is probably a really good argument for not washing fruits and veggies until you use them but washing and cleaning them works well in my house and our schedule and is healthier,we tend to grab and run with our snacks. i used a homemade wash with vinegar but i will modify with the one you provide.
with a goal of accessing good for us food quickly when hungry ,this works for us. air and water can be bad for fresh fruits and veges so i dry and seal with a food sealing appliance i obtained from the thrift store for very little $.
rather than using the expensive plastic roll that is made for these sealers i use cheap plastic bags in a correct size and i never waste a grape.
Thank you so much for posting. I will use these.