The first time my future spouse saw me rinse a raw chicken, he was appalled. "But Julia Child says to!" I'm pretty sure I argued, to his disgust. Soon after, I found myself similarly horrified when he came in from a supermarket run and took the kitchen sponge to wipe down every can and every carton before putting the food away. That sponge, I reasoned, had to be way filthier than whatever Key Food filth had been lingering on the Coke I was about to bring to my lips. We want to practice safe, hygienic food handling for the obvious reasons — we don't want to ingest anything that could make us sick. But over the years, I've learned that the when, how, and even if of food washing evokes strong, often contradictory opinions — and even more questions. Do some people really wash eggs? Isn't just peeling an orange sufficient? And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with these dirty mushrooms?
This January, Suggest ran a feature by writer Dana Hopkins with the provocative title "Don't Wash Your Produce First: These 6 Bad Refrigerator Habits Could Be Costing You (Or Even Make You Sick)." The story stopped me dead in my tracks. For years, I have carried the offhanded wisdom of a Food Network icon who advised to wash all your produce before you put it away, so you have less prep work when you're ready to cook. I haven't actually always done it, because I am lazy, and have certainly never applied the rule to strawberries. But a fridge full of perfectly clean vegetables nevertheless always remained my platonic ideal. As Hopkins writes in Suggest, however, "Excess moisture could lead to bacterial growth which in turn could lead to illness."
