Water or Produce/Vegetable/Fruit Wash?

For all sorts of reasons, people are willing to spend more on organic groceries. It all boils down to health, to consuming less contaminated food for our body's sake.

This body we live in is the very one we carry to our graves, the very one possesion that if we do not take care of, may potentially cause us pain and suffering in our remaining days.

For recovery from an illness (usually something major) to maintenance (prevention of potential harm from long term consumption of pesticides) to protection (I used organic vegetables whenever I was the one  cooking for my kids before they turned 2 years. Although pesticides haven't yet been proven capable of wiping out the entire human race in seconds and there are many people who live long, healthy lives - like my grandfather who passed on when he was 108  years old, I do also worry that the same amount of pesticide we adults consume is be toooooo concentrated in my little one's body)

This post is not (only) about organic food. This is about water not being the same.

Why the long prelude about organic food?

I do not use produce/vegetable wash on my vegetables. Because, is it as useful as we think? Attaching only one study done: Removal of Trace Pesticide Residues from Produce - Study Done by CAES

A search online and you'll get to read up more on other studies done.

Quoting the summary at the end of the article,

"A three-year study showed that rinsing under tap water significantly reduced residues of nine of the twelve pesticides examined across fourteen commodities. Four fruit and vegetable wash products were found to be no more effective at removing eight of nine pesticide residues from produce than either a 1% solution of dishwashing liquid or rinsing under tap water alone for three commodities studied."

If water can do the job, why spend on produce/vegetable wash?


Water vs Water

Isn't water all the same? Depending on where you reside while reading this, you'll probably be rolling your eyes because indeed in some parts of the world, water is NOT all the same.

We are in Singapore. Here, our water is very meticulously filtered to be drinkable right from the tap. But no one speaks of our faith that the pipes which carry our extremely clean water is not coated with contaminants (especially apartments/houses that have been built like 50 years ago and before, with pipes that serve them being of equivalent age).

Assuming water is all the same (get distilled water if necessary)

Here, I did a very simple soak-the-strawberries-with-water experiment. Strawberry is a favourite fruit by the way.



Both containers were filled with water FROM THE TAP, except that

i.  container on the left (clear water) was filled with tap water STRAIGHT OUT FROM THE PIPES,

ii. container on the right (brownish water) was filled with tap water that WENT THROUGH KANGEN K8'S IONISATION PROCESS (watch attached video)

How did water of pH11.5 strip off pesticides that well?

The process whereby the water in the container on the right (of ph11.5) stripped the strawberries of pesticide faster than regular water on the left, is called ALKALINE HYDROLYSIS. The pesticide is hydrolyzed and rendered ineffective when it is mixed with water with a pH greater than 7.  The more alkaline the water, the more rapidly the pesticide breaks down. 

To understand a little bit more of how high pH affects pesticide found in our vegetables and fruits, click on the following links:
i.   Direct Link Between Exposure to Pesticides and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes
ii.  Water pH and the Effectiveness of Pesticides
iii. Effects of pH on Pesticides

Quite horrifying to be witnessing all that pesticide hydrolyzing right before our eyes isn't it? That was what we had been consuming all our lives. This will be corrected in the generations to come.

Food for thought

Is our body, our asset or our liability?