Fresh Produce Alert

Enjoy a winter salad after the produce has been thoroughly washed
*Do NOT eat a salad at a restaurant if the lettuce id dry... it has not been washed! 

The weather is finally somewhat stable and we actually got a bit of rain. The garden is grateful and the moisture gave hope to the emerging spring flowers… buds of the Redbud and Lilacs are swelling and three Jonquils are in bloom!

We have had another alert about produce and we were told to avoid Romaine lettuce. The recalls began in 2006 with spinach and the culprit was finally assigned to hog waste and rightly so... religious texts are full of references to avoid hogs. Several years ago the tomatoes were apparently poisonous, causing severe illness, then peppers, and the list grows weekly. Fresh produce is available year round, but at a cost… most of it is produced in third world nations that are notoriously dirty.

What plants utilize from the soil goes directly into what they produce and thus care must be taken to properly wash them. Contrary to popular belief, produce is often unwashed when packaged. On a television special I noted workers packaging strawberries in the field. The strawberries arrive at the supermarket with whatever the worker had on his hands at the moment… and my visual of a worker harvesting while ill is not good. 

I also watched a popular cooking show and noted the lady making the luscious cake did not wash either the strawberries or the blueberries she put between layers of whipped cream. Always assume produce is dirty upon arrival in the market… enjoy it after it has been properly washed.

Lettuce, tomatoes, squash and the like must be carefully washed, onions must be peeled, and celery and potatoes scrubbed with a vegetable brush, and so forth. Don’t wash off dirt…cut it out and toss it. Although she was not Jewish, my grandmother, an excellent cook and a thrifty lady, kept a kosher kitchen. She never used the same cutting board for meat and vegetables and knew cooking kills much of the bacteria naturally occurring on meat but that it may be transferred to raw produce. She utilized yesterday’s newspaper to catch vegetables peelings then tossed it‘s folded contents into the trash or the compost bin.

Wash your hands between preparation of raw meat and vegetables and sanitize the counter often. Women are encouraged not to place their purses on the counter as purses are notoriously filthy on the bottom… the very thought of what my purse has ‘seen’ makes me wince. The same is true of school supplies and back packs…keep them off the counters as they are a germ fest.