<p>Soaking your lettuce for a few minutes in a water/vinegar solution can kill bacteria like e coli.</p>
<p>I usually tear the lettuce, put it in the spinner with the water and vinegar, let it soak for several minutes, then rinse and spin dry.</p>
<p>Vinegar is such a good idea.</p>
<p>The whole world is covered in bacteria, and I can’t see making yourself too crazy over it, especially since all the restaurants and school cafeterias and fast food joints sure aren’t hand washing and drying individual lettuce leaves. I’m sure if anyone took a bacteria count off the average home countertop the results would be horrendous and we’d all be swabbing our kitchens with bleach every hour. But oddly enough, while I’ve I had “food poisoning” several times in my life, I haven’t been so afflicted in at least 25 years, and my kids have never had it. I really wonder if the incidence of food borne illness is any worse today than it was in the past.</p>
<p>I worked at a restaurant in college. If you saw how the salad bar was set up and taken down every night, I doubt if you would ever eat another salad in that restaurant.</p>
<p>And no, I am not naming any names! I suspect that it is probably pretty standard operating procedure.</p>
<p>I look at my kids. The first two I was meticulous about every thing being sanitized and germ free. Then third one comes along and I was a little less meticulous. That child was much healthier.</p>
<p>I don’t use anti-microbial soap on a regular basis, either. Just plain old soap and hot water, washing for a good, long while. My doc said that it actually has caused us to be less healthy, and that antibiotics don’t work as “well” anymore, either.</p>
<p>LGM - you don’t have to name the restaurant but can you describe how it was set up/taken down? I’m curious and can’t tell if you’re referring to salad prep behind the scenes or the types of salad bars where diners serve themselves. Lately I’ve started avoiding places that serve anything buffet style, as I’ve seen people who will literally touch items to determine freshness etc. and then not even take/throw out the item.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to knock on wood after writing this, but my H and I eat loads of bagged lettuce every week and never have washed it. I peel and eat bananas and tangerines, and cut cantaloupe and watermelon without washing them. I do rinse apples, but just barely. I also request ice on airplanes to go with my soda. I never get sick. (I don’t use anti-microbial soap either). I don’t know. There’s just too much to worry about anymore. I realize salmonella is a real threat, but I don’t see how rinsing the cut lettuce is really going to deter that particular bug. The rest I guess I just don’t care that much about.</p>
<p>It was more about putting stuff back in the fridge after being out in a buffet style salad bar all day long, which people may have touched. I would have tossed it all at the end of the day if I ran the restaurant. There was a “sneeze guard” but even so, it just seemed to breed bacteria. Especially the salad dressing.</p>
<p>I would much prefer a salad made in the kitchen to a salad bar, after that experience. Perhaps it isn’t all done that way. That was a lot of years ago, so I am hoping they are a little more cautious, nowadays.</p>
<p>It was a restaurant chain that served great pies, btw.</p>
<p>Antimicrobial soap can actually be viewed as germy. Since it doesn’t kill all the bacteria, the bacteria develop resistance. Overuse of antibiotics like Methillin is what causes MRSA and other hard-to-fight diseases. Plain old soap and water works just as well.</p>
<p>At a restaurant my wife once found a bee in her salad. It didn’t bother either of us; it seemed kind of natural somehow, I guess, that a bee would wish to reside in a salad (as opposed to, say, a plate of spaghetti). But we told the manager anyway, and he gave us a 50% discount. Not bad for a day’s work.</p>
<p>DD and I once had a dinner at Ruby’s, and I found a whopper of a fly in the second fish taco on my pate. The manager came out to personally apologize for the spoiled dinner. Our meals were on the house, and we were offered free desserts as well, however, DD politely declined the offer. I would have enjoyed a slice of apple pie since I only had one taco!</p>
<p>Put me in the “anti-anti-germ” side. I think the antimicrobial soaps are probably doing more harm than good. The world is covered in germs. Just a part of life. It’s awful when someone does pick up a really bad one, but I think that’s one of life’s random events. The kinds of things that are more likely to harm us in our disfunctional food system are the ones we can’t wash off. That’s where I’d like to see more oversight.</p>
<p>One way to cut down on germs in our own kitchens is a proper disinfecting of our sponges and dishcloths. Throw it in the microwave or dishwasher. Wash the dishcloths in bleach and hot water to sanitize them. Don’t cut raw meat and vegetables on the same cutting board. Make sure you proper food prep handling guidelines. </p>
<p>I wash my sponge every time the dishwasher runs. Then let it dry out before using it again. (I usually rotate them.)</p>
<p>I remember growing up in a house where the sponge was never cleaned. It is amazing I am alive today. ;)</p>
<p>^^I used to get stomachaches & “flu” bugs when I was growing up. Not sure my mother believed in the germ theory…or promptly refrigerating cooked foods.</p>
<p>Haven’t been bothered since I’ve been responsible for my own kitchen. I wash & bleach sponges & cutting boards, keep raw meat/veg separate, and don’t worry about triple washed lettuce.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Er… wouldn’t “warm” (as opposed to “hot”) water actually provide a more conducive atmosphere for germs to grow? And wouldn’t use of a cloth towel on veggies rinsed in warm water simply spread the germs around more, especially if the same towel were used on different veggies, or the towel was left hanging in the kitchen for days on end and reused?</p>
<p>I also feel that the gaping hole in this “study” is that there is no testing of home salads prepared from whole veggies. If I buy my spinach in a bunch with roots still attached, rinse it in a colander, and then mix it in a bowl with rinsed leaves from head lettuce, and veggies like carrots and tomatoes that have been chopped with my kitchen knife on my home cutting board… how do I know that has any less bacteria in it than the stuff in the bag? </p>
<p>It seems to me that I am doing an excellent job every day of infecting store-bought produce with home-grown bacteria. That may be fine for me – after all, I’ve probably developed a good immunity already to the home-grown stuff, since I live with it – but I think I would be deluding myself to think that a rinsing stuff in tap water is doing much disinfecting. I thought the idea was more to get rid of residual dirt – as well as those lurking bugs. (Most of the bugs that lurk in green veggies are probably quite harmless to eat, just unappetizing – but I doubt that an ingested aphid would do me any harm.)</p>
<p>I do eat yogurt with live cultures every day. That is… I am deliberately eating food with living bacteria, hopefully because the “good” bacteria will help my body better cope with “bad” bacteria. See <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flora[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flora</a></p>
<p>I use vegetable wash from Trader Joe’s. For hard vegetables or fruits (apples, peppers, cucumbers, etc.), I put them in the colander and squirt in veg wash and water. It fills up with suds (this colander drains very slowly), and I scrub the produce with a vegetable brush and rinse. Then I put it on a cutting board covered with a clean dishtowel to blot off the water, before cutting. I use those white plastic cutting boards, and they go through the dishwasher after each use. Lettuce and other greens is washed in the colander with sudsy (veg wash) water and rinsed. (I like the vinegar idea!) Then I either spin it or, if I have time, wrap it in a dishtowel and refrigerate for a while. </p>
<p>I have lots of dish towels and dish cloths. I put them into the laundry after one day (or part of a day) and start with clean ones each morning. I wash them in hot water.</p>
<p>I, also, wash melons, etc., before cutting. I scrub the outsides with veg wash and the brush and rinse before cutting. </p>
<p>Lots of “food for thought” in this thread. I’m sure that my produce is not as free of dirt, germs, and pesticides as I think it is, but I feel better washing everything.</p>
<p>Will look at the NPR link. I don’t wash bananas (yet)!</p>
<p>raiderade, I understand that you want to clean your fruits and vegetables. So do I. The water and the towel will remove some dirt, which may also contain some bacteria. But I do not think that warm water will kill the germs.</p>
<p>Warm water will not kill germs. Especially salmonella germs.</p>
<p>I suppose hot water would be a more technical term. I just always term it warm. Hot water definitely does work to kill at least some germs.</p>
<p>It seems to me that if the water is hot enough (and sustained for a long enough time), to kill germs, then you would be cooking the veggies being washed. I’m sure parboiling is effective to kill most germs, but not so sure that its a useful way to sterilize fruits or veggies being eaten raw.</p>
<p>The reason people use warm water to wash produce is not to kill germs but to wash off traces of pesticides and/or herbicides more efficiently since many chemicals dissolve better in warm water than in cold. To kill harmful bacteria, one needs to immerse the veggies into boiling water for several minutes which will cook them 
Luckily, running water removes particles of dirt where those bacteria sit so most of the times rigorous washing is good enough. I read that people got ill from eating raw spinach because E. coli bacteria (from sewage-contaminated fields) got inside the stems and leaves with the water the plants were absorbing, and the bacteria could not be washed off no matter what vegetable wash or soap were used.</p>
<p>Many bacteria form spores that are heat and soap-resistant (think stuff like C Difficile), so washing even with some sort of a detergent will not kill the bacteria, but simply detach it from the surface of the object that is being washed and physically remove them. Not to scare you, but some bacterial spores can even survive treatment with dilute bleach.</p>