Hello Members-
People often ask: Do I need to wash my vegetables if the farm has already washed them? The answer is YES. We take food safety seriously at Park Ridge Organics. We have a written food safety plan and many important steps in place to ensure that our customers are getting clean produce. BUT we don't wash everything (example: tomatoes don't enjoy a wash) so it is always good practice to rewash all produce that you get from our farm or any farm/store for that matter. E coli and Listeria are soil born bacteria that can cause serious issues for young children, pregnant woman and people with compromised immune systems.
Here is a video of us washing Arugula so you can see just how we do it!
Hot Tips and Cold Facts about Food Safety
Hot Tips: Don't cross-contaminate! What does that mean? Cross- contamination can be contamination between clean veggies and dirty veggies, between the outside and inside of the same veggie, or between veggies and uncooked meat or eggs. A common place for cross-contamination to occur is on your cutting board. Some things to remember when you're prepping veggies, don't cut a dirty onion then peel it and chop it on the same board (wash the onion before peeling), don't peel carrots or potatoes onto your cutting board, use separate cutting boards (or sides of a cutting board) for meat and veggies. Did you ever notice one side of your cutting board has a groove around the edge and the other doesn't? The grooved side is for cutting meat and poultry, the groove catches any runoff juices, and the smooth side if for cutting bread and produce. Using the sides accordingly can help reduce cross-contamination between meat and veggies.
Cold Facts: Cross-contamination caused a huge listeria outbreak in cantaloupes in 2011. Jensen Farms acquired used machinery, that they used to wash cantaloupes and it had never been properly sanitized. Listeria contaminated the outsides of the cantaloupes, and then when people cut into them without washing them, the listeria spread to the fruit. 147 people from 28 states were infected, and of those 33 died. The Jensen brothers, owners of the farm, were sentenced to 5 years of probation for something that could have easily been prevented. Cases like this remind all of us how important food safety is from farm to table. Here are some links to read more about this specific case if you like...
CDC - Multistate Outbreak of Listeriosis Linked to Whole Cantaloupes from Jensen Farms, Colorado Listeriosis
At sentencing, cantaloupe growers apologize for deadly listeria outbreak
Thank you and happy eating!
Park Ridge Organics
