With the scare of food borne illness in our food supply again, it is important that extra precautions be taken when harvesting your own garden’s crops this year.
3 Once the produce begins to develop, it is then time to think about what to safely collect the harvest in. To keep foods from becoming contaminated, use only recently cleaned and sanitized food-grade containers to collect food from garden. Food-grade containers are made from materials designed specifically to safely hold food. Do not use garbage bags, trash cans, or any containers that are not food-grade. Many garbage bags have been treated with pesticides. Wash your hands with soap and water and use new clean gloves to pick produce from garden. Watch using old gloves that have been used in other gardening chores like composting or pulling weeds. Excess garden soil and debris can be removed from produce with a clean brush and fresh potable water before bringing it into the kitchen. The water temperature should not be more than 10 degrees colder than the produce.
5 We should always keep in mind that raw produce can be contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria at any point. Proper hand washing with soap and water is the primary control to reduce bacterial contamination. To reduce potential contamination fruit and vegetables should be rinsed with cool water and any remaining soil should be removed with a clean and sanitized brush specific for this purpose.
6 Sanitizing fruits and vegetables is only recommended for people that have special medical conditions that have left them with a compromised immunity. Regardless of sanitizing method used, produce must be first be washed and scrubbed before applying a sanitizing solution. Vegetables such as cabbage, celery, lettuce or green onions must be torn apart so that all surfaces are exposed to the solution. After the prescribed sanitizing treatment, treated produce must be rinsed with potable water before consumption. These sanitizing treatments are especially developed for foods and work well to sanitize foods. By no means should a chlorine solution be used to sanitize any food item. The chlorine solution is known to be toxic.
This information was taken from Nancy Flores, Food Technology Specialist for New Mexico State University. For more information on foods and nutrition or other topics, please contact the Lea County Extension Office at 575-396-2819. Lea County Extension Service and New Mexico State University are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and educator. NMSU and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating.