a few weeks ago, chuck sent me an email forward (he works with women. there are a lot of email forwards) about how to properly clean strawberries. i rolled my eyes (like i do when i look at most forwards) but decided to see what they had to say. apparently, there are tiny "strawberry bugs" that look a lot like strawberry seeds and like to camouflage themselves on the fruit. hmm... i'm not that squeamish, but it motivated me to "properly clean my strawberries" the next time i bought them.
i'm going to share the process below. you'll be happy to know that i never found any bugs... but what i did find might surprise you. it surprised me!
this is how i, and most people, clean their strawberries. we rinse them. we rinse them well.
the approved method takes it a step further.
fill a bowl with warm, soapy water. (i use toxic-free dish soap...)
place your strawberries in the soapy water, letting them soak for a bit and then rubbing them gently to clean them.
once the strawberries have been cleaned, remove them from the soapy water and rinse them in a colander.
wait. did you catch that?
look at the water that is left behind!! unfortunately, i don't feel like this picture even does justice to the amount of dirt and debris that was left behind by my strawberries.
the next step is to cut off the tops of the strawberries, just below the stem. some people prefer coring, and i guess that's ok, too.
this process left me with a bowl full of clean strawberries. it also left me with a little more peace of mind. true, a little dirt never hurt anyone. and, i know there's a statistic out there about how many bugs we will inevitably consume in our lifetime. but i'm grateful that this time, i wasn't the one feeding the dirt or the bugs to this face...
and i think he is, too.
just in case you are curious, here is the link to the official how-to-clean-your-strawberries place:
Thanks for the tip. Do the strawberries not taste soapy?
ReplyDeletenope - not soapy at all. but i rinse them well!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. Lately, I have gotten strawberries from the farmer's market, and they are sooooo good compared to the ginormous ones from the store. I rinse them, but that's it. I don't know if I will take the time to wash them, but that is pretty gross!!! I am growing my own. I've found if they lie on the dirt, they get moldy. So I've tied some of them up with string to see if helps them ripen without getting moldy.
ReplyDelete