Do you need to wash produce with vinegar or a special produce wash?
By RIPE, checked against a produce manager's cues. Published .
No. Cold running water plus friction is the recommended method: rub with your hand, or use a clean brush on firm items like potatoes and melons. There is no solid basis for saying a commercial produce wash or a vinegar soak does better.
What to check
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Avoidsoap, detergent and bleach. They are not intended to be eaten, and produce can absorb them.
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Wash melons and citrus even though you do not eat the rind, because the knife carries whatever is on the outside straight through to the flesh.
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Wash just before use, not when you get home. Washing early puts water on things that then sit damp, which is how berries and greens spoil faster.
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Notebagged salad marked washed or ready to eat should not be rewashed. It was cleaned under conditions a home kitchen cannot match.
Common mistakescrubbing soft fruit hard. Bruising a berry or a peach opens it up and does more harm than the surface dirt you removed. Rinse gently and dry it.
Written by the team behind RIPE, a free app that reads a photo of the whole produce pile and rings the ripest ones. Every cue above is one you can check with your own hands, and it all works with no app at all.
You just read the cue for one piece. RIPE reads a photo of the entire display, draws numbered rings on the ones worth taking, and tells you why in the same plain words these guides use. Then it remembers what you brought home and nudges you before it turns.
It claims only what a camera can actually see. Every verdict ends by handing the last check back to your hands, which is the part these guides just taught you.
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