Will washing fruits and vegetables protect you?


Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 by Allie Gallant

Giving your fruits and veggies a scrub before eating them is sensible, but will it protect you? The short answer when it comes to food safety is: no.

Imagine if a hospital wiped down its operating equipment with water and said, “Well, that looks nice and clean to me; we’re ready to go!” Of course, that sounds ridiculous. Because the really nasty bugs — bacteria and viruses — take a lot more than water to remove. There’s a reason doctors methodically scrub their hands for 20 minutes and put on sterilized gloves before surgery.

Whether it’s beef or blueberries, water won’t make any difference

Bacteria are everywhere. If bacteria were purple, every surface on the earth would be purple with its presence.

What matters to food safety are pathogenic bacteria. These bacteria interact with your system and can make you acutely ill, can have chronic effects or can be deadly.

If pathogenic bacteria have contaminated your fruit or vegetables, simply washing them with water won’t make a difference. You’ll likely only spread the bacteria to your hands and the towel you use to dry the produce. You can’t wash E. coli off ground beef, and you can’t wash it off produce either.

Foods that are eaten fresh, like fruits and vegetables (or fresh from the package, like ready-to-eat meats) are very risky to consume if they become contaminated, because they aren’t frozen or cooked to a minimum temperature before eating. So if bacteria are present, they will make their way onto your plate.

What can you do?

Washing fruits and vegetables can remove wax coatings, pesticide residues, oil and grime, and surface debris. You can also wash your hands, and store and cook food carefully to avoid cross-contamination.

But when it comes to illness and disease, your best defense is a strong food safety system that prevents contamination in the first place.

Farmers, manufacturers, processors, distributors and retailers need to take steps to prevent contamination and ensure food safety. Programs that specialize in on-farm food safety, such as GlobalGAP (Good Agricultural Practices), can help prevent contamination of fruit and vegetable crops through the use of standards and certification, along with similar programs covering steps down the supply chain.

The real key to preventing harmful bacteria from making you sick, therefore, lies in the wider food safety system. Knowledge (education and training), accountability (standards, audits and certification), advancing technology and global collaboration are key for ensuring food safety.

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4 Comments

  1. Adeola
    May 13, 2014 • 2:22 am

    Washing your fruit and veggies is extremely important to the health and well being of your family!

  2. Alfredo
    May 7, 2014 • 9:42 am

    My mother taught me to wash fruit and vegetables before storing in the refrigerator in order to remove rest of pesticides.

  3. David Andrews
    April 22, 2014 • 2:30 pm

    Allie and Brendan both make good points. However like many growers / producers who have high standards and use good food safe disciplines (like GAP, wash products etc), isn’t this about the food chain of custody and therefore dependant on all links in the chain? I have visited many sites with laudable standards only to see high quality products placed in pathogenically contaminated RTP trays, delivered in pathogenically contaminated vehicles, which are then placed on contaminated pallets or in contaminated roll cages and transported to a Distribution Centre in another contaminated vehicle. The products then sit in the contaminated trays in the store to be picked by the consumer or placed in another contaminated tray for delivery in a contaminated Home Delivery vehicle. This isn’t rumour or heresay, we have taken swabs from thousands of trays, shippers, roll cages, shopping carts / trollies and vehicles. The results are appalling and widespread. So while I agree with Brendan – and producers often do all they can – the food chain is only as strong as its weakest link. All the great work can be undone in a moment by poor disciplines or cost-cutting further down the line. Food conveyance and food transport is still rightly described as the “squeaky wheel of food safety”. At least the US has the FMA – the UK and Europe is still in the dark ages.

  4. brendan Chambers
    April 16, 2014 • 6:40 pm

    A very good overview Allie. However, Organic or Natural Food Wash products such as we produce here in Ireland will kill 99.99% of all bacteria including E.coli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes etc.
    There is no need to wash off after use.
    Well worth trying Allie and certainly for consumers that have an uncertain quality water supply.

    Brendan Chambers
    Chamco Group


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