Foodie Friday...

This is a cleaning lesson - with food. So it counts for Foodie Friday. :)

Thank you GratefulforGrace for the idea. I keep forgetting to wander around with my camera so I didn't have anything stashed in my back pocket for this week. You saved me!

So - we've all heard and maybe you've even experienced the horror stories of food from Mexico and the bacteria and such that makes you sicker than a dog, if not worse.

Well....we live here and for the past 4 1/2 years (Honduras too) getting 'imported' food that is completely, 100% USDA approved was just not possible so our options were and are: live and eat it, or starve. So - we've learned to manage what we can, and pray over all the rest.

Enter a new mentality and disinfectant. We assume everything has something. This is working pretty well for us. The general rule for eating outside US borders is if you can peel it - it's okay to eat raw. (Talking fruits and veggies here) Otherwise, cook it lots or disinfect it. So we always do the soak method before it goes into the fridge.



Okay so really it's more like 95% of the time - everyone has been known to snitch stuff before it gets into the cleaning vats; this is where the prayer comes in. Everyone assumes that once it's in the fridge or put in it's proper place it's free game. I set this up in years past, so it's a 'known' fact.

The only things I do NOT soak are the onions. They get g.r.o.s.s. if you soak them. Slimy from the inside out...blech. But not one single person in THIS house is going to eat a raw onion, so I figure we're good. I also wait 'till the meal we're using it for to soak lettuce and cabbage - but again - these items are not high on the 'grab a bite' menu so...

You can use bleach - but gag. It's nasty. Effective, but nasty - not to mention toxic.

THESE are our products of choice.



The pure vinegar is an effective disinfectant although I will be adding Hydrogen Peroxide to boost it after reading a few more articles.

• Use vinegar as a produce wash. Susan Sumner, PhD, a food-safety scientist at Virginia Tech, has researched the effectiveness of vinegar since the late ’90s. She found in one study, published in the 1997 issue of the journal Food Microbiology that spraying vinegar and then spraying hydrogen peroxide on produce killed a majority of E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, and Listeria bacteria. You can also mix it up, using hydrogen peroxide first, just as long as you don't mix the two together (they're less effective that way). Let the produce dry before you eat it.

Bactericida - It's a fruit, veggie, water and general sterilizer for decontaminating. Here's a page on it - ready to practice your Spanish??
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactericida

So - honestly, we eat pretty much anything and so far, gracias a Dios, we've been healthy. I'm POSITIVE this is not related entirely to my cleaning methods either, so keep up the prayers.

Faith