Our family’s priorities, when it comes to diet, is to make sure we include in our diet quality produce in the form of vegetables and fruits. While we do buy organic and we’re fan farmers’ markets, many times this comes at a high price. By now, you probably know we’re budget freaks so paying too much on food is something that myself and my wife are working to permanently optimize.
One of the things we tried to do is to find a way to clean as much as possible the conventional vegetable and fruits we’re buying in bulk. One of the things I personally have tested recently is a fruit&vegetable wash from Trader Joe’s: basically a light wash that is based on coconut oil, lemon and grape seed oils.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I like Trader Joe’s especially for their variety and I really liked this wash. However, the engineer in me suggested I should keep looking for a better, cheaper and MUCH MORE EFFICIENT way of not only cleaning but also, extracting the pesticides which farmers are using to protect their produce against pest. Are you ready? Here it goes…
Introducing: Baking Soda
There have been multiple studies around how amazing baking soda is. In my research, I’ve came across this incredible study done by University of Massachusets that showed how submerging apples for 15 minutes in a solution of water and baking soda removed more pesticides that doing the same thing with bleach. And by the way, in case you didn’t know, before they hit the shelves, apples are already bleached (!!!).
So here’s what I do not only with apples but with ALL fruits and vegetables: I usually fill a pot with 0.5 gallons of cold water and put in 3 generous tablespoons of baking soda and I stir well until it dissolves. Immediately after, I put all the produce I am looking to wash in the pot and let everything sit there for, like, 10 minutes. I then take everything out and rinse with a lot of cold water and I am done.
Once pesticides are removed, the natural taste is back
Do this thing with apples and you’ll feel the difference in taste, especially if you eat the peel as well. I am personally doing this with berries as well as with fruits and vegetables we generally don’t consume the peel from, such as mangos, papaya or cucumbers. The difference is notable, to say the least.
As a last word, the thing that I love the most about this trick is how inexpensive and simple is: it only requires water and baking soda (we’re using this one from Amazon) and both are ridiculously cheap!
What’s not to love about this hack?