How to Use Baking Soda to Wash Off Toxic Pesticides from Fruits and Vegetables

Baking soda is a truly incredible product with many practical and amazing uses. It helps treat heartburn, clean stubborn stains, and more. According to the latest studies, the wonderful ingredient can even get rid of 96% of the pesticides on the produce.

One team of researchers conducted a study at the University of Massachusetts to determine how efficiently could baking soda remove the pesticides on gala apples.

During testing, the researchers used 2 common pesticides: phosmet and thiabendazole on organic gala apples.

Thiabendazole is a fungicide that can easily penetrate the apple peels. That is why people usually use phosmet. To wash the contaminated apples, the researchers used 3 different liquids: tap water, water/baking soda solution, and commercial bleach.

The commercial bleach solution is approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Plus, this particular bleach solution is the most common liquid for cleaning produce.

The results proved that submerging the apples in the baking soda solution for at least 2 minutes, helped remove far more pesticides than the popular bleach solution, or rinsing them with tap water.

But, it took 15 minutes for the baking soda solution to remove all the pesticides from the fruit, said the researchers (1).

Baking Soda Solution for Washing Produce

The best way to remove all the pesticide from the skin of the vegetables and fruits, is to use this amazing baking soda solution. Since baking soda is an alkaline salt, it can effectively remove the pesticides without causing any harm to the environment.

Baking Soda Solution Recipe

Here is how you can make this wonderful baking soda solution. To make it, simply mix a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in a bowl of water.

Soak the fruits and veggies in the solution and let them sit for up to 15 minutes. Next, rinse the fruit as you would normally do with water.

If you want to clean the produce, even more, you can use some raw baking soda on the skin of the fruit and scrub it with a produce brush. This is a great method for removing the dirt, microbes, and pesticide from the fruit.

Why Not Remove the Peels?

The easiest way to remove the pesticides is to peel the fruit. But, the peel contains most of the vitamins, says a materials engineer at Purdue University, Lia A. Stanciu (2). She makes sensors for easily detecting pesticides.

Since people want to consume plenty of vitamins, they need to eat the peels. But, to do that, they have to wash the produce properly. That is why she highly recommends that they try this baking soda solution.

It is supposed to be the best cleaning agent that is completely natural and won’t destroy the produce. According to research from 2015, a huge amount of the produce contain residues that are far below the tolerance limit (3).

Also, low-level of pesticide exposure can cause chronic disease, such as diabetes. Other than that, it can also affect the reproductive system and cause hyperactivity in children.

That is why it is crucial that we properly wash the fruit to remove all the harmful pesticides it contains.