How Often Do You Clean Your Produce?

This is a sponsored post.

A lot of things have come out of this horrible pandemic. Some of them are pretty bad but then there is the upside – people are being more vigilant about what they do and how they do it. I have never seen so many people working together to stop the spread of this virus. From television to celebrity to social media statuses, one thing can be sure- we all want this virus to go away. But how do we do this- it is actually quite simple just by not spreading germs, I know you are thinking that is just a very simple gesture- so simple but so misunderstood, like how to clean your produce. Let me set this scenario for you and you can see what I mean.

It is a grocery shopping day- you leave your house, head to your car with a mask, grocery list, and purse in hand. ( Unless you are one of the lucky ones who have been able to secure a grocery online pickup) You take special precautions by either using hand sanitizer constantly while you are shopping or using gloves. ( But for the love of all that is holy- if you do wear gloves please dispose of them properly in a trash can after use. Don’t just drop them on the ground outside the store.)

So now you are at the store, using a wipe you wipe down the shopping cart and off you go. Normally the first section you see when you enter a grocery store is the produce section, am I right? So you grab the many fruits and vegetables on your lists. Pulling down those plastic bags that are hung up all around the section to put your week’s worth of produce in your cart. And then you get busy checking off items on your list, until finally you are done. All that is left to do is check out. And the wait begins, after what seems like hours ( seriously doesn’t it seem like that). It is your turn, so you check out, make your way back to your car and load those groceries into your trunk or backseat- whichever happens to be empty. After the cart is empty, you return it to the cart corral and jump in the car and head home.

So that is the end of the grocery saga or is it? Once home you have to unload the groceries making sure that they are put away properly. But this is when my questions and point of the story comes into play- do you clean your produce before you place it in the refrigerator or do you just put it away? Before COVID I would say I would be a just put it away type. But since it hit, I am a clean your produce before it even hits the refrigerator. First I rinse them all off. And then I use Arm & Hammer Fruit & Vegetable Wash to get all the other impurities off of them. I mean it safely removes any residue from pesticides, wax, and soil. I mean who wants to taste a mouthful of dirt? Plus If you really think about it, how many times do you think zucchini or apple is touched at a supermarket? I bet it is more than 1000 times. And frankly, I don’t want to take that chance that it might not be nasty.

It may be several days before I use it but still, it is better to be safe than sorry. I will say I use it Fruit & Vegetable Wash again when I take whatever produce I am using for dinner that night out of the refrigerator. It is better to be safe than sorry am I right? I will say I used to be in the camp that cleaning your produce before use was okay but now I know twice is just as nice.