How NOT to Be Poisoned By Your Food

As we homesteaders begin to rake in the summer produce (while planning for yet more), it may be time for some good advice on how to make sure that the produce you’re buying at the grocery store, at the farmer’s market, and off that farmer’s truck by the side of the road fully safe for your family to eat in this age of imported food, bad farming practices and bacterial contamination.

I am presuming that homesteaders know enough about the critters in the soil (and compost) to be regular produce-washers and cooks who know how long to cook a hamburger or egg so as to preclude any possibility of e.coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella poisoning. But with recent news of e.coli contamination of fresh produce - everything from “pre-wahed” lettuce and spinach and scallions to tomatoes - it’s good to review the basics.

Most of us who can our own produce as well as cook our own food also know that contamination like Salmonella and e.coli can be easily transferred from one food to another if we’re not very careful with the cleanliness of our working areas, cutting boards and utensils, and equipment. Sure, we can kill the critters with high enough heat and processing times, but as a semi-vegetarian, who wants to eat dead bugs either?

There’s a great series of articles on basic household cleaning agents that not only talks about things we already know per poisons, but offers alternatives that are cheap, readily available and extremely multi-purpose. Among the list of ingredients are white vinegar and baking soda (things always in stock around my place), which also happen to be the best way to make sure your produce - as well as your sink, cutting boards and equipment - free of pathogens and other things like wax that traps pesticides onto purchased produce.

You could go out and buy some spray-on veggie wash (it’s a regular Big Business), or you could just make your own. Another best-bet tool is a good veggie-brush, which should be disinfected before use every time, just like the sink.

Best veggie wash (also removes wax, but use the brush) is a basic vinegar and soda concoction. Mix it up, put it in a spray bottle, keep it by the sink. It does double-duty to clean the sink and equipment too, whatever you aren’t actually sterilizing beforehand (like canning jars and lids). It can be used on fresh spinach and lettuce too before rinsing under running water, because vinegar isn’t going to taint the taste of your salad!

Best recipe for the disinfectant wash-spray:

3/4 cup white vinegar
2 tbsp. baking soda
1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
1 cup water

Put it in a spray bottle and shake before use. Don’t spray mushrooms, they’ll absorb it. Spray produce well, let it sit for 5-10 minutes in pre-disinfected sink, then rinse thoroughly with running water.

Even if you buy the “pre-washed” salad mixes in bags, ALWAYS wash before eating! It was just those pre-washed, bagged products that caused such misery and death in 2006.

Keep Your Family Safe!

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Filed under Food Production, Food Safety, Garden, Health, Homestead, Recipes |