With contamination of fresh produce in the news again, how can we be sure that we get the health benefits of a balanced diet containing a diverse range of vegetables without making ourselves vulnerable to E. Coli or other pathogens? Must we really become terrified of spinach?

There are some vegetable sprays and washes already on the market that can usually be found in your local health food stores or by ordering online, many of which also claim to remove pesticides and other agricultural chemicals. But you have other options -- some of them already in your home.

Bleach

Yes, bleach. Properly diluted and throuroghly rinsed off the food with running water after an 8 - 10 minute soak, bleach can be used to oxidize and kill dangerous bacteria that may be living on your produce. Unfortunately, typical household bleach (ie. laundry bleach) may contain any number of impurities, additives and chemical scents.

National Standards Foundation (NSF) rated bleach is widely regarded as safest for this purpose, but may be more difficult to track down. One popular source is swimming pool supply stores.

Hydrogen Peroxide

Food grade hydrogen peroxide, which is typically available in a strength of 35%, can be diluted down to 3.5% and makes for an extremely effective produce bath.

To dilute to 3.5%:

• pour 1 ounce of hydrogen peroxide into a glass jar
• add 11 ounces of water to the jar

Be sure to take necessary precautions while working with the undiluted H202. It is also important that you not use the 3.5% hydrogen peroxide that you typically find in the pharmacy. It may be fine for external wounds, but it is not safe for internal consumption.

After soaking your fruits or vegetables in the H202 for at least several minutes, rinse it off thoroughly.

Ozonated Water

There are a number of ozone devices already on the market explicity advertised for santizing produce or purifying water. Whatever controversy may surround the use of ozone in medical practice, it's efficacy for water treatment is widely accepted. Even the big bottled water companies proudly state that their product is ozonated on the bottles.

Any water ozonater is suitable, and some can be purchased relatively cheaply (under $60). Place the tube from your ozonater into a basin of water with an air stone (these can be found at aquarium stores), let it run for a minute or two, and drop your produce into the water while letting the unit continue to operate for up to 20 minutes.

Vinegar and Hydrogen Peroxide

While vinegar alone can't be counted on to fully disinfect your fresh fruits and vegetables, many claim that in combination with hydrogen peroxide it proves more effective than just hydrogen peroxide alone. The common approach is to fill one spray bottle with vinegar, and a second spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide diluted according to the instructions above.

Spray your vegetables throughly with the vinegar, then spray with the H202, and rinse under running water.

These spray bottles are also very handy for decontaminating counters, cutting boards, and other surfaces.

Tests run at both the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the University of Nebraska have demonstrated the H202 and vinegar combination to be up to 10 times more effective than H202 alone in elimating Salmonella, Shigella, E. coli, and other illness causing bacterias on intentionally contaminated foods.

And others?

These are by no means the only possible solutions to the contamination problem. However, we are not presently comfortable with some other common approaches such as the use of grapefruit seed extract in light of recent research which prompts cautious skepticism about its efficacy.