How To - Washing Fruits and Vegetables

Jason Bolton: Hello, my name is Jason Bolton.
I'm the statewide food safety educator for
the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
It's been known for a very long time that
a diet with several servings of fruits and
vegetables can have many health benefits.
But with headlines in the news like "31 people
die after eating E. coli-contaminated sprouts（豆芽）,"
or, "17 hospitalized after eating salmonella（沙门氏菌）

papaya（番木瓜）," it doesn't exactly instill confidence.

So whether you're shopping in your Maine farmers' markets, 

grocery stores or big-box stores,
if you follow these easy steps of washing your produce, 
you can reduce your risk of food-borne illness（食源性疾病）.
One way to increase the safety of your produce
is by washing your produce.
According to the FDA, washing produce prior to peeling, 

cutting or chopping anything in the processing of your produce, 

will actually reduce the amount of bacteria that could be present on it.
Therefore, decreasing your risk of food-borne illness.
In today's video, we're going to talk about
proper ways to wash fruits and vegetables.
So let's start with the basics.
First, you want to make sure you wash your
hands with warm, soapy water.
In addition, you want to make sure that you
wash all utensils（餐具）, equipment and any contact
surfaces with hot, soapy water.
You want to make sure you use clean, cold
water to wash your produce.
Make sure that water is drinkable.
When you're actually purchasing your products,
you want to make sure that they have

intact（完好的） skins that are not bruised（瘀伤的）.
And you never want to use detergents（清洁剂）to wash
your fruits and vegetables.
They can leave residues（残渣）on the fruits and
vegetables, which can be unsafe to consume.
If you see a package of produce that's labeled
as pre-washed, triple-washed or ready-to-eat,
make sure that you do not rewash those.
You can actually further contaminate those clean products.
So for your fruits and vegetables that have
a thick surface or a tough surface, like potatoes,
apples and carrots, you want to make sure
that you scrub the outside of that, removing any dirt.
For your fruits and vegetables that have high surface area 

or complex fruits and vegetables,

like broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach,（西兰花、菜花、生菜、菠菜）

things of that nature, you want to make sure

you soak those fruits and vegetables 

for one to two minutes in cold water.

Your last groups of fruits and vegetables

that you want to look at are your delicate

or fragile fruits and vegetables.

These are the ones you want to wash with cold,

running water in a colander（滤器）-- things like

cherries, strawberries, blueberries.

Also, when you're done washing your fruits

and vegetables, you have the option to dry

with a clean paper towel.

This actually will remove more bacteria, in

addition to the washing process.

A study done at the University Department

of Maine Food Science and Human Nutrition

looked at chemical washes and rinses（冲洗）, like

Fit, that you find at the supermarket.

They compared Fit, versus drinking clean, cold water.

It turned out that the clean drinking cold

water and the Fit produced the same amount

of bacteria that was present on the surface

of most fruits and vegetables.

This study was done with blueberries.

In addition, they found that they reduced

the same amount of pesticide（农药） residues found

on the surface of fruits and vegetables.

When you're done processing your fruits and

vegetables -- this means peeling, washing,

cutting or any other processing that might

take place -- you want to make sure that there's

no temperature abuse that takes place.

This means that after you're done processing,

you want to refrigerate or bring the temperature

of your produce down to 40 degrees or below.

In addition, you want to make sure that you

only purchase, cut or peel items -- this is

your produce we're talking about -- that is

at refrigeration temperature in the grocery stores.