For fragile fruits and veggies, such as lettuces, or soft skinned fruit like peaches, etc. two minutes is long enough for a wash. The harder skinned items such as apples, Qs, tomatoes, etc. for 5-minutes.
After this wash, rinse thoroughly with filtered water, pat dry with a clean dish cloth. It is well advised to peel those food items with skins on them. As for the more perishable ones like leafy or tender vegies, wash only before consuming, and only what you intend to eat at the tiem. Pat dry with a paper towel or cloth.
Additonally, if you consume ORGANIC fruits and vegies, wash them as well with filtered water and vinegar and rinse clean just before consumption. This cleans off the grit and any tiny creatures left on them. If you can afford to pay a little extra, buy ORGANIC. IT IS HEALTHIER FOR YOUR BODY.
Matti Narkia on 30 May 09Using a new, more sensitive-testing approach they developed for fungi, Penn State food scientists have found that mushrooms are a better natural source of the antioxidant ergothioneine than either of the two dietary sources previously believed to be best. The researchers found that white button mushrooms, the most commonly consumed kind in the U.S., have about 12 times more of the antioxidant than wheat germ and 4 times more than chicken liver, the previous top-rated ergothioneine sources based on available data. Until the Penn State researchers developed their testing approach, known as an assay, there was no method employing the most sensitive modern instrumentation and analytical techniques to quantify the amount of ergothioneine in fungi. The researchers say that their assay can be used for other plants, too, not just mushrooms.
