Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Making Fresh Vegetables and Fruits Safe

USDA scientists spoke on Monday at the ongoing meetings of the Society for General Microbiology’s 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK about safety in harvesting, processing and marketing of fresh produce. They said that there was no absolute way to assure safety in these procedures despite use of harvesting mowers for some products, use of water flumes for processing, triple washing, and packaging in a modified atmosphere.

Prior to the recent fresh spinach contamination problem, I read about a cheap and simple way of disinfecting fresh vegetables.

You put hydrogen peroxide in one spray bottle and a solution of water and vinegar (I use 1 part cider vinegar to 2 parts water.) in another. Spray the vegetables with one, wait a few minutes and spray with the other. It doesn’t matter which solution you use first. If you have clean water, you can rinse with it. But that’s not necessary.

As a bonus, when I used this with grapes and strawberries, they seemed to keep longer in the refrigerator.

If you wish to read the summary for the latest article on fresh produce contamination, you can go to

http://www.eurekalert.org – Lettuce, leafy greens and E. coli

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