How to Wash and Sanitize Your Groceries and Food

How to Wash and Sanitize Your Groceries and Food – Here is a resource on methods and best practices to wash and sanitize your groceries and food during the Covid-19 Pandemic. I also talk about what we are doing as a family for washing and sanitizing our groceries and food.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

How to Wash and Sanitize Your Groceries and Food

How to Wash and Sanitize Your Groceries and Food

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all staying safe during this time of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Our family is taking extra precautions when sanitizing our groceries and washing our food during this time.

Our household is following CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and WHO (World Health Organization) guidelines for washing and sanitizing food.

I have also included a video from a doctor who demonstrates how to sanitize groceries as they come into your house.

This process can take much more time than you would normally take but it is worth it for peace of mind during this uncertain time when this new virus that we do not know a lot about is spreading so easily.

I will keep this post updated as I come across new information for if I have more to share.

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Vegetables

We are thoroughly washing our vegetables – I highly suggest using a salad spinner (we use one by OXO and love it) for all leafy vegetables to make that process easier.

I am option to cook leafy greens or at least using a dressing with an acidic element, like lemon juice or vinegar.

We have been washing leafy greens in cool water as suggested in the YouTube video, but I know some people who are washing them in soapy water (with dish soap) and then just rinsing thoroughly.

Fruit

Fruit with Peels – we are seeking fruit that has peels instead of berries at this time.

The types of fruit that we are getting the most of our apples, oranges/citrus, and bananas.

We compost all of the fruit peels.

We are not using peels in any cooking at this time.

We wash every piece of fruit in soapy water using Dawn dish soap (the blue kind) in a large tub or mixing bowl in the sink, before putting it in the fruit bowl or in the refrigerator.

That might seem like overkill but it gives us peace of mind.

Meat, Poultry and Fish

Since these types of food are cooked, this is less of an issue for washing.

Just remember to cook food thoroughly and test the internal temperature for each type of food.

Canned & Jarred Food

We wipe them down with disinfectant wipes (or a paper towel saturated with disinfectant) and put them away.

Takeout Food

In our household, we make all our meals, which we did before but especially at this time, if you do plan to get take out to support local businesses, make sure to get hot food at this time, discard any packaging and then reheat the food to be on the safe side, in the oven or microwave to kill any germs that may be on the food as an extra precaution.

Packaging

Any packaging that can be left outside we leave outside to later take to be recycled just to limit what comes into the house.

Plastic bags we keep in the garage.

Normally, we would take them to be recycled at the grocery store or use as trash bags.

Before all this, I would use reusable bags but in an abundance of caution at this time we are not, although theoretically, you could wash the bags with bleach.

Any cardboard that we can get rid of we put it out to be recycled right away.

Any food in packages that we keep in the house we wipe down thoroughly with a disinfectant.

YouTube Video

As outlined in the below (very useful) video, we are wiping down all packaging, removing food from packaging, and even though this takes extra time and it seems like an abundance of caution, that’s what we feel we need to do right now to protect our family.

As they say, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

After the whole process of cleaning and disinfecting the groceries, we wipe down doorknobs, surfaces, parts of the refrigerator (inside and outside) that we touched during the process, the entire countertop, and any other surface, handle or knob that was touched with disinfectant.

How to Wash and Sanitize Your Groceries and Food

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