I bet you’d be hard pressed to find high end restaurants who wash their mushrooms. Chefs don’t wash mushrooms. I tend to rinse mine but its against all the foodie rules.
The problem with washing berries (especially raspberries and strawberries) is that they get moldy so fast that you have to eat them immediately after washing if you want to avoid eating undue amounts of mold.
I had friends in elementary school who were all in the back of a station wagon when they hit a truck stopped in a dark road (in Africa). One boy was killed, one was severely injured and one was cognitively impaired forever. Our family has been religious about seat belts ever since. It drives me bananas that buses don’t have them and that they are buried in most taxis.
I don’t eat those pre-washed “baby” carrots any more. Too many bags where they had got all wierd and mushy. In the summer we get vegetables from an organic CSA. So nice!
I don’t wash a steak unless it’s starting to smell a little off and it appears to just be the outer surface that’s the issue. I do usually wash chicken and fish.
The latest recommendation from the food experts is to not wash chicken. The process of washing disperses any germs causing more contamination than just leaving it alone. I’m sure it pertains to other proteins as well but chicken seems the most susceptible to food poisoning in the American food chain.
Mushrooms are a different beast altogether, and I don’t have an issue with them not being washed. Typically the growing medium is sterilized between each batch, and the workers wear special gloves to keep from bruising the mushrooms. (can you tell I really like mushrooms).
I rinse the meat before I cook it-again, I’m going to immolate whatever pathogens were on it, but I still do it anyway. Except for ground beef (which, ironically, is most likely to contain pathogens within the burger). With the ground beef I buy local grass fed beef and hope for the best; and we don’t eat a lot of red meat anyway. No pork, either (not a religious thing, they’re just too close to humans for me to not feel grossed out by the pig flesh).
Can’t.Quite.Give.Up.Bacon…
Some years back, while waiting for a flight, I ended up talking to a man who sold machines that wash lettuces–those bags of lettuces that come “pre-washed”–and I asked him if he ate the lettuce without washing it. “Nope. I don’t have control over the company’s filter-cleaning process.”
I wash fruit and vegetables by rinsing under running water for a while. I grow my own lettuce. I never eat commercial sprouts.
I had the lovely experience once of slipping on my shoes and finding a dead cricket inside. So I check now. I check even though I live in a place without crickets! There are so many possibilities out there! (or in there…)
Yes, I rinse fruit, especially berries and grapes. They are so small that if one is bad or mold starts to grow it can hide in the air spaces for a while. I tend to rinse only what I’m going to eat at one time. I’ve found too many yucky things over the years to not rinse.
And I use a mushroom brush. It’s a mushroom shaped mushroom brush that I found for about $2 at TJ Maxx. Their soilless growing mix might be sterile, but it’s still not something I want to eat. I want the mushroom flavor, not the peat moss.
Always. If it’s not the pesticides or wax, then it’s the dirt.
Those baby carrots don’t even taste good. And the ones I’ve had are always slimy.
It doesn’t take that long to wash and peel, chop or shred a real carrot.
Count me as a real carrot eater. I especially love the dark, beet-colored ones.
When you think about it, everything breaks down to fundamental elements anyway which don’t sound nearly as bad…
Example: “Ew, there’s bacteria on that tomato!” (gross!) vs. “Your tomato has a thin layer of Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorous, and Sulfur on it” (almost sounds healthy!)
I don’t get what seems like mocking of those who wash their fruits and veggies. It’s a quick and easy way to minimize health risks and the yuck factor.
We don’t use sponges in the kitchen or elsewhere in our home. Dish towels are changed at least once a day, often more frequently depending on use. Once a week I do a small wash load, in hot water with detergent + Borax, of cloth napkins, dish towels, and hand towels from the guest bathrooms. I use paper towels for some cleaning jobs, for others I use microfiber cloths that are also laundered in hot water with Borax.
As for doorknobs, light switches, etc., ours are regularly wiped down with Lysol wipes or Clorox wipes. I use the wipes provided at our grocery store for the cart handles and after handling meat packages. When I return home from shopping I wash hands, especially before putting away food. During cold/flu season I use Lysol wipes on food containers, such as milk cartons. Just about anything I buy is cleaned before use.
One of our kids experienced immune system issues due to medical treatment for a chronic health problem and we learned to be extremely vigilant. Dh has numerous allergies, so all bed linens have to be laundered in hot water weekly. We have no carpet, no draperies, and mostly leather furniture instead of fabric upholstery.
@Silpat I went back and looked for mocking of ‘Washers’, and didn’t notice much, maybe a tad. But, I did notice these:
But as a semi-Washer, I’m OK with it.
Isn’t the mockery how we came up with looking for spiders in our shoes?
I soak berries and fruits like plums in water with vinegar. I actually started to this to prevent mold- it works pretty well for that – but vinegar also has disinfectant properties.
My dogs nibble on poop.
Somehow I don’t think that the unwashed baby carrots are going to do them in.
So the only acceptable answer to your question was the one you wanted to hear?
Not sure if that was directed my way. But, nope, I’ve enjoyed all the answers, actually. Especially ones about dogs nibbling on poop and wacky band names. Plus, I learned a lot.
@calmom does the vinegar make the fruit smell vinegary? I used to use vinegar to de-glaze pans after I’ve browned stuff in them, but the cloud of vinegary vapor that consumed the kitchen was overwhelming. Same with using vinegar to clean the bathroom-it was clean, but it smelled like a salad for days!
I don’t think I’ve mocked anybody. My point is that we react strongly to risks sometimes, and discount them other times, often without knowing what the risk actually is. Checking for spiders in shoes was an example of something that I assumed most of us don’t do because we don’t think it’s a big risk. Wearing seatbelts was an example of something that I think most of us do because we view the risk as substantial. I agree that the cost of washing fruit isn’t very much for an individual, but across millions of people it’s a lot of water and a lot of time. Is it worth it, as compared to the risk it prevents? I still don’t know, really.
I this can be important, but it may not be rational. I recall a case in which the authorities drained a big reservoir because they learned that some trespassers had peed in it. Despite the fact that it, like most reservoirs, was open to the sky (and thus, to bird pee), the yuck factor of human urine was too much, even though the dilution factor would make it pointless from a risk point of view to do anything about it. (I’m going on memory here, because I’m too lazy to search for it; if I have the facts wrong, I apologize.)
Added: I looked it up. It was one person who may have peed into a reservoir holding 35 million gallons of water. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/30/portland-reservoir-urine_n_5243586.html