Quick Tip :: Go buy a gallon of white vinegar NOW!

We eat a lot of produce!  What we don’t grow at Windy Ridge, we must buy, and while we’d LOVE to buy only organic produce, it’s just not feasible in our food budget right now. I’ve been making a weekly trip to Sams Club lately, and let me tell you, my shopping cart looks VERY different than the average Sams Club shopper!  Most shoppers leave with boxes of prepared foods, bags of quick meals, lots of cleaning & paper products and snacks (TONS of snacks).

When I make it to the check out line, we have clam shells full of grapes, spinach, blueberries, pineapple; bags of onions, bananas, avocados, and boxes of apples, cheese, butter.  “Real” food, most of which doesn’t even have an ingredient list because it IS an ingredient by itself.   You’re always heard to wash your produce before eating it, and this is especially important now because of all the food recalls we’ve had lately. 

In the past, I had just put my grapes or whatever in a strainer and let the cold water from the faucet rinse them off.  UNTIL, I left the strainer in a bowl of clean water in the sink one day (while I finished making lunch) and came back to find yuck water in the bowl AFTER it sat there for about 5 minutes. 

I kind freaked out a little because I was going to eat those grapes and feed them to Miss Bossy Britches and Little Miss Picklepants because I had just “washed” them.  I remembered passing by a “Produce wash” in the produce section at Walmart several years ago (and had made unbelievable amounts of fun of people who had purchased such a product to “wash” their veggies….) 

NOW, we intentionally get the “funk” off our non-organic fruits & vegetables with more than just rinsing them (and, yes, we still make lots of fun of people who buy the overpriced produce wash because you can make your own for pennies.) 

You’ll need:

a big bowl

cold water

white vinegar

2-3 drops dish soap (not the antibacterial kind)

Pour about 1 c white vinegar and 2-3 drops of dish soap in a big bowl.  (If you don’t have a bowl large enough, just clean your kitchen sink really well and use it!)  Stir it to mix in the soap.  Then, place your fruit/veggies in the bowl and fill with cold water until produce is covered.  Swish the produce around in the bowl with your fingers a few times.  Let soak for 10-15 minutes. 

Swish the produce around a few more times and then strain the yuck water off.  Rinse the bowl and dump the produce back in and fill it up with water again and strain the water off again to rinse the vinegar/soap off the produce.

We do this for apples, grapes, cucumbers, pears, and any other fruit/vegetable especially when we don’t peel them first (and who, besides Little Miss Picklepants) peels their grapes?)

The diluted vinegar wash is said to remove 98% of bacteria. 

So, on your next trip to Sams or the grocery store, pick up a gallon (or two) of white vinegar.  Your body will thank you for not putting as much of those yucky chemicals & pesticides in it!

Happy Day :: Christy

P.S. You can also use vinegar for making products used for cleaning around your house such as this amazing floor cleaner.