Why would you expect tap water to kill bacteria?
You’re washing bugs and dirt off.
I don’t think that salad bought in a store should have bugs and dirt on it, if you find them in your sink when you wash it you should change supermarket
EDIT: My bad, I was thinking about pre packaged salad, not like a whole head of lettuce, OP is correct and OOP should wash their lettuce better
Bugs mean fresh and no pesticides!
BUGS GOOD!
It’s like finding soil on your tubers. It’s better to have to wash it off.
Lettuce grows in a bundle of very tightly packed leaves. At no part in the growing - transport - shelving - selling chain can anyone be expected to thoroughly wash between the leaves, especially near the root. Rinse your veggies before using.
Bro people poop in the fields because they literally just don’t have time to go back to the restroom in between shifts of picking
And I don’t blame them in the slightest. They have a very hard job
So I don’t know about you but I will always be washing any produce that I buy at the grocery store as soon as I bring it in my house
I don’t know where you live but I’m in Australia and I also lived in South America and I’ve seen plenty of dirt, caterpillars, aphids and flies too many times on my lettuce, harvested from different sources, seasons, and purchased from different supermarket chains and small grocer shops.
And it was never a problem for me. Where are you getting your sterile lettuce from, so I make sure I don’t?
You might be thinking of pre-packaged salad which, while already washed, can still contain bacteria. But if you’re buying plain lettuce, it’s absolutely not pre-washed.
I’ve been using Original Commenter (OC) to talk about the person who starts a comment thread. Seems to be pretty intuitive. Wonder what the acronym would be for commenters responding to OC and starting different comment branches. Probably makes sense to just use their name
OC already means Original Content so at best you will just be confusing people.
The mechanical action of water running and wiping is what takes out 90% of germs and bacteria already. Soap is only responsible for that next 9%.
There’s still 1% unless you autoclave it.
Tldr: You probably don’t need soap for dishes if you wash them during initial rinse immediately after use and they aren’t super gross.
You still want to wash and soap your hands cause 10% of cold germs is plenty.
Also quit licking your fingers to open the plastic bags for produce at the store you filthy fucks.
I mean that only seems like it’d be true if oil isn’t involved, since running water over something coated with oil seems like it’d do pretty much nothing
You wash because of the pesticides.
Also the bugs, fecal matter, and dirt that can be in the folds and pockets.
They’ve studied that and it doesn’t get rid of pesticides.
To get rid of pesticides you need to immerse it in a baking soda solution for about 20 minutes.
Thank you. I thought that pesticides wouldn’t come off with simple rinsing.
They’ve studied it and you’re wrong
The correct answer is 9/12 pesticides are removed by Simple rinsing with water. Detergents do not improve results compared to mechanical removal via rinsing for 30 seconds.
At a minimum rinse all fresh produce under tap water for at least thirty seconds.
The mechanical action of rubbing the produce under tap water is likely responsible for removing pesticide residues.
Personally I wouldn’t call mechanical action of rubbing to be rinsing. I would have liked to see the % removed, but skimming that article I didn’t see. Also in my experience people don’t rub for 30 literal seconds, the people I watch are lucky to break 5 seconds.
But the main point I want to make is that baking soda is a base that breaks down the pesticide.
Liang [4] studied the removal of five organophosphorus pesticides in raw cucumber with home preparation, and the research results show that washing by tap water for 20 min only caused a pesticides reduction of 26.7–62.9%. Sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate solution caused a pesticides reduction of 66.7–98.9%.
The removal efficiency of other washing solutions outperformed the tap water; tap water washing only caused a 10–40% loss of the 10 pesticides, and the AlEW, micron calcium, and active oxygen solution caused a 40–90% loss of the 10 pesticides.
AIEW being alkaline electrolyzed water, which I understand to be baking soda.
You wash it because of the ratlungworm that raw snail and slug can give you.
She’ll be right
Here’s me raw dogging my salads.
It probably doesn’t do much, but I soak it in water with vinegar for 10 minutes.
I assume the ratio is low enough on the vinegar that it doesn’t impact the taste?
Can’t imagine it would hurt anything if it doesn’t affect the texture.
Yup, 2-3 teaspoons in a bowl of water. I rinse it with water again after soaking and that washes away any sourness left behind.
