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How To Remove Pesticides From Fruits And Vegetables With This Secret Ingredient

 

The spring and summer months bring an abundance of produce that is unmatched with any other seasons, paired with the desire to eat lighter meals, we end up consuming a lot of these healthy ingredients.

You are careful about your food choices and sometimes eating non-organic foods often lead to a higher exposure to chemicals and pesticides, taking a toll on your health.

We don’t want to damage our health with all that bad stuff and buying organic fruits and vegetables is not always an option. Sometimes it’s simply not convenient to find and the cost is always higher than its pesticide laden counterpart, so what can you do?

You have the option of buying a pricey commercial produce spray that will clean it and remove bacteria, but most of the time, it won’t help removing or minimizing the pesticide content. Or, you can make this  DIY Natural Produce Wash Spray that breaks down and washes off pesticides with common household ingredients, without leaving any odor or weird taste on the produce.

The key to this produce wash is baking soda, which is a natural biopesticide and a safe and effective ingredient to kill most pesticides from produce, trapping dirt off and removing the wax coating. When mixed with vinegar and lemon juice, it becomes a powerful solution that also removes germs and bacteria from fruits, vegetables and leafy greens, without adding more chemicals to it and costing pennies to make.

Image credit: Flickr/AquaMechanical

Don’t forget to wash organic produce with the mix as well. Just because it wasn’t treated with pesticides, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t exposed to potentially harmful bacteria that can make you sick.

What You’ll Need:

  • 1 cup of water
  • 1 tbsp baking soda
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp vinegar (any kind you have at hand)
  • 1 small spray bottle
  • Vegetable brush

How to Make It:

  • Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and transfer it to a spray bottle.
  • Spray produce with the mixture and let it rest for 5 minutes. Scrub lightly with the vegetable brush and rinse.
  • For leafy greens or a large batch of produce, use a larger bowl or a sink basin, fill it with water and adjust the amount of vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda.

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