How to Use Baking Soda to Wash 96% of Toxic Pesticides from Your Fruits and Vegetables?

Do you like to bite into an apple or pick grapes? If you don’t buy them organic, you can be sure that if you haven’t cleaned them carefully, your fruit will be coated with several layers of pesticides. In particular apples and grapes which, like peaches and nectarines, are among the fruits most contaminated by chemicals. Faced with these polluted fruits called the “Dirty Dozen”, we fortunately find the “Clean Fifteen”: melon, watermelon, kiwi and mango are much less affected by the abuse of pesticides. To be sure of your fruits and vegetables, it is best to wash them before eating them. But be careful: running them under water does no good.

Baking soda is an essential ally at home. Due to its low cost and its multifunctionality, it represents an essential element that you must always have on hand for its many practical uses.

To move in this direction, a recent study discovered its effectiveness in washing fruits and vegetables. Its components would have the capacity to rid them of around 96% of toxic pesticides.

Baking soda

• Immerse the fruits or vegetables that you are going to consume in a basin filled with water in which you have just diluted one to two spoons of baking soda.
• Scrub fruits or vegetables with your hands (or a soft-bristled toothbrush) vigorously, but without damaging them. Leave it on for a minute or two, rinse it off. They are ready to eat.

A study took a close look at this ingredient

• According to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, baking soda is an effective ingredient for removing pesticides from food. This study used Gala apples to conduct a test, and the results were impressive. The baking soda solution was found to be the most effective in removing pesticides. The apples were sprayed with the fungicide thiabendazole, known to penetrate apple peels, and the insecticide phosmet. After the apples were soaked in the baking soda solution for 15 minutes, 80% of the thiabendazole fungicide was removed and 96% of the phosmet was removed.
• Furthermore, Dr. Lili He and her team explained to Reuters Health that soaking in bleach is intended to only eliminate bacteria and other organic matter and does not in any way eliminate pesticides. . The researcher added that the baking soda solution is better able to separate pesticide molecules.