If you buy organic, .. .

[janie1234]

Do you really have to be so diligent with washing? I mean isn't the whole point of dishing out the extra $$ is to not have the pesticides? And can someone tell me how they clean their mushrooms? I saw on the Food Network that you're supposed to just brush off the grit, . . .but mushrooms are grown in manuer (sp?) right?

 

[Jaffas]

I wash my mushrooms. I know they all say not to but I do it anyway. I read or saw somewhere that even if you soak them for a significant amount of time, much longer than you would to clean them, they only absorb a negligible amount of water. They proved this by weighing them before and after they were soaked.

 

[lrayburn]

You still need to wash organic veggies to remove dirt and microbes. I just wipe my mushrooms with a kitchen towel but if washing them in water makes you feel better go ahead and do it.

Lisa

 

[kathryn]

I wash my organics (exceptions: when I'm lazy and in a hurry, I don't always wash the greens that are in packages and say they are triple washed). It's not to remove pesticides (which I wouldn't think would be totally 'removable' from non-organic produce anyway, because not only does the produce get sprayed with it, it 'drinks it up' from the water that it is irrigated with).

Another exception: if I pick them fresh from my garden or yard (wild stuff). If there's no visible poop on it (like from a bird) or dirt, I just eat it as is. If there's some dirt, I do a light rinse.

Lately, I've been spraying my non-home-grown produce with a 3% food-grade hydrogen peroxide solution (to kill any bacteria, which could be transfered to the food from other people touching it. I mean, who knows how many people have been handling it before me, and what they've been touching beforehand?).

I've also used a mix of white vinegar (sometimes with baking soda) and water. (white vinegar has been shown to kill bacteria as effectively as, if not moreso than, bleach). I soak non-organics, but just spray and wash the organics.

For mushrooms, I wonder about them as well, because they often seem to have dirt on them that is hard to get off. I don't eat them often (partly because of this problem), but when I do, I run water over them (but only over the top, as if they are umbrellas and the water is rain: don't let the water get in the 'gills' underneath) and wipe them with a paper towel. You can also take a damp paper towel and wipe them off.

I actually prefer getting dried mushrooms (and assume that they are cleaned well enough before drying, though soaking and rinsing them cleans them as well), in part because I can't always find organic fresh ones (and also because they don't seem to last long).

 

[Lastchance09]

One day I was standing in front of a market that had most of it's produce outside. A pear fell on the nasty, stinky sidewalk and the employee picked it up and ,er, uh, did not throw it away. Someone took that pear home eventually - that's one reason to continue washing all of your produce - organic or not. People touch it, sneeze, cough, etc and don't forget the dirt that's inside leagy veggies.

 

[Peaceful Rainbow]

It's not uncommon to find small insects in the greens, even in the ones that have been packaged and trucked across the country. Last year I got some collard greens at the farmers market that had slugs in them, so if for no other reason than that, you might want to at least rinse them really well.