Which vinegar is best for cleaning fruits and vegetables?

This DIY Fruit and Veggie Wash is a simple way to naturally (and inexpensively) clean your fruit and vegetables. Just one simple ingredient!

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A simple 1 ingredient cleaner!

I have been using this simple 1-ingredient cleaning method to wash my fruit and vegetables for years.  It’s as easy as filling a sink with water and vinegar, then adding your fresh produce to soak.  Inexpensive, easy and effective!  

How do I know my fruit and vegetables are clean?

All you have to do is look at the water.  It’s dirty.  Brownish and with pieces of wax and debris from the produce.

After soaking, why do some of my fruits and vegetables have a white layer on them?

When you get produce from the market it’s always shiny, and the vinegar from this wash dissolves most of that shiny layer, and what you are seeing is just the remnants of that.

Will my fruits and vegetables taste like vinegar?

No.  If you rinse well, there is no vinegar taste.  Even in the berries. 

Let’s talk about berries.

You can use this cleaning method to wash berries as well.  You just can’t let them soak as long as you would apples or oranges.  I will only soak mine for about 5 minutes or so.  Rinse well.

Fruit and Veggie Wash Tips:

• Ratio:  Basic cleaning ratio of 1 cup vinegar to 4 cups water.
• Vinegar:  Use regular white household vinegar.
• Soaking:  You can make this wash and soak your produce in your clean kitchen sink, or feel free to use a bucket.
• Scrubbing:  Feel free to lightly scrub your produce with the vinegar/water solution after it has soaked.  This will get rid of any remaining wax and dirt.
• Rinsing:  Make sure to rinse your produce well after soaking in the vinegar/water solution.
• Drying:  After rinsing, lay your produce out to dry on a clean tea towel.

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Have you ever wondered whether those expensive veggie washes are worth the money?

The editors of Cook's Illustrated, a serious foodie magazine, wondered too. They usually focus on cooking techniques, but recently they looked into techniques for cleaning food.

"We wondered ourselves, you know, what's the best way to be washing an apple, or the best way to be washing a pear," said Jack Bishop, editor at Cook's Illustrated.

Testing Cleaning Techniques

So the magazine did some comparative testing, by cleaning apples and pears in four different ways. They washed one batch with an antibacterial soap. (That, by the way, is not recommended by food safety experts — nobody thinks swallowing soap is a good idea.)

They washed other pieces of fruit with a solution of diluted vinegar (one part vinegar to three parts water), rinsing afterward with pure water. They scrubbed the third group with a brush, and simply rinsed the fourth group with clean water.

To measure how well each technique worked, they sampled the outside of the fruit with sterile cotton swabs, then rubbed the little bits of grime onto Petri dishes.

Jack Bishop says they next let the Petri dishes sit at 80 degrees for several days to see what bacteria grew. Then they counted how many bacterial colonies were present.

It turns out the scrub brush removed 85 percent of the bacteria — a little more than the water alone.

But the cleaning method that worked the best was the dilute vinegar rinse. It removed 98 percent of the bacteria.

Cleaning with Vinegar

"I've got a spray bottle filled with three cups of water and one cup of white vinegar," Bishop says. "It's in a spray bottle — the kind you'd mist your plants with."

Bishop sprays each apple with about six squirts of the solution — just enough to coat the surface — and then rinses it under the tap.

"The cold water will wash the residual flavor from the vinegar, and finishes the cleaning process," Bishop says. "So it's a 30-second, 50-cent investment."

The technique works best for smooth skinned fruits and vegetables. When you get to broccoli, lettuce leaves, or spinach, produce is harder to clean — as we've learned from recent nationwide recalls. Bishop's team found that soaking lettuce in the vinegar solution works well, but it's a little more labor intensive than spraying apples.

"You're going to have to separate out the leaves. You can't do a whole head. And that may be where it gets to be impractical, because you need a big enough bowl to be three parts water and one part vinegar," says Bishop.

The folks at Cook's Illustrated are not the first to document the effectiveness of acidic washes. Researchers at the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Tennessee State University tested dilute vinegar against plain water and a commercial product called Veggie Wash that they purchased at a grocery store.

"We really did not really find the veggie washes effective or necessary," says Sandria Godwin, who oversaw the project.

Godwin says they do get rid of most bacteria, but her team of researchers found that water works just as well. They found that water can remove 98 percent of bacteria when it's used to rinse and soak produce.

For vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower that have lots of crevices, Godwin recommends a two-minute soak, even though this contradicts the advice of government food-safety experts who are concerned about cross-contamination of bacteria.

"They're not recommending the soaking of foods because that puts bacteria in the sink itself," explains Godwin. "We still think you should go ahead and do the soak, and wash your sink when you get through!"

For people who aren't willing to go to all this trouble — what about that old technique of rubbing or polishing a piece of fruit on your clothes to get off the grime? There's not much research, but Godwin did have one student look into it a little bit.

"We lined people up in here and had them blow on their apple and rub it on their shirt or lab coats to see if that's effective," Godwin says. "And surprisingly it did something; it's better than nothing. But it really depends on how clean the shirt is."

So, she does not recommend that. Here's a better tip: Since bacteria and dirt are usually trapped at the blossom and stem ends of fruit, the Tennessee researchers say slicing off both ends after rinsing is a good idea.

How to Keep Your Food Safe

Food can become contaminated with harmful bacteria where it is produced, where it is sold, or even on your kitchen counter. Here are some tips on how to prevent food-borne illness:

Wash your hands often. Yes, that age-old advice is still the best way to avoid getting sick. Use hot water and soap to wash your hands before and after handling food, and after using the bathroom, changing a diaper or handling pets.

Disinfect dishes, cutting boards and counters with hot, soapy water after preparing each food item. Bacteria from one food item could remain on the cutting board, dishes or counter and contaminate the next food item prepared there. A solution of one teaspoon of bleach in one quart of water can be used to sanitize all surfaces and utensils, and is especially important for cutting boards used to cut raw meat. The bleach solution needs to sit on the surface to be sanitized for about 10 minutes to be effective.

Clean fresh produce.

- Rinse under running water. For extra protection, adding one part vinegar or lemon juice to the three parts water helps, but you don't need to use any soap, detergents or special cleaners. It is important to rinse food even if you are going to peel it.

- Use a scrub brush to remove additional dirt and bacteria.

- Cut out bruised or damaged areas; bacteria can thrive there.

- Dry produce with a clean cloth or paper towel to wipe off more bacteria.

Use special precautions for raw meat, poultry and seafood.

- Always keep raw meat, poultry and seafood separated from other foods. From the minute you take these raw meats from the store shelf until you cook them, it is best to keep them in plastic bags to prevent juices from dripping. The uncooked juices can contain harmful bacteria.

- If possible, use a separate cutting board for raw meat, poultry and seafood. Don't use the same one for fresh produce.

Marinate food in the refrigerator, not on the counter. Sauce used for marinating raw meat, poultry or seafood should never be reused on cooked food, unless it has just been boiled.

Refrigerate or freeze leftovers within two hours of cooking. Cool temperatures keep most harmful bacteria from multiplying. Store food in clean, covered containers.