Homemade veggie/produce wash

I have been so impressed by Mel's success in spending only $200 on food for a whole month, and also convicted that here in our family we have been woefully over our (very generous) budget in the food and eating-out categories. I had to come to the painful realization that all the organic items I've been buying have really been taking their toll on the ol' wallet, especially now with food prices rising.

I discussed with Mel and Mica that it is hard for me to consider the idea of going back to buying conventional vegetables. We all had a good laugh about that, since apparently the term "conventional" vegetables is only something seen at Whole Foods...which is yet another reflection on how much time I spend in specialty organic shops.

I decided that if I need to buy conventional (non-organic) produce, I really want to take extra care to get as much of the pesticide residue off as possible. I have heard of products like Fit produce wash, but I think that spending $7/bottle on this wash would probably cancel out the monetary reasons for buying non-organic produce in the first place. I was pretty sure that I could find a recipe for a homemade wash, and here it is! I really like that there are 2 versions: a soak and a spray.

Last night after we went grocery shopping for the week I filled the sink with the soak version of the recipe and put a bunch of produce in it. I didn't let it soak for a whole hour, probably more like 30 minutes, but I feel like it probably did help. At least I feel better about it and I am hoping it might even extend the fridge life of some of the produce. If you get a chance to use it, let me know how it goes!