Abstract

Washing fruits and vegetables before eating is recommended to reduce the chance of foodborne illness. Rinsing may not be as effective in removing microorganisms, as consumers believe. The current study determined the effect of multiple water rinses in removing bacteria and yeasts/molds in the first study and compared multiple commercial solution and water rinses in the second study. In the first study, over 3 logs of aerobic bacteria per ml of rinse and almost 2 logs of yeasts/molds per ml of rinse were recovered from the fifth rinse. Grapes had very low bacteria and yeasts/molds counts (< 1.0 log CFU/ml of rinse) compared to the other five produce products (2 to > 4.0 CFU/ml of rinse) tested and the commercial rinses did not reduce the number of bacteria or yeasts/molds recovered from the produce greater than water rinsing. Based on this and other studies, consumers should be aware that produce that has been rinsed can retain high populations of microorganism on their surface.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.