In today’s world much of vegetables and lettuce are grown in fields watered by contaminated and unclean water. Liquid manure is used in vegetable fields. Hence, to keep bacteria in check we need to develop good food preparation habits and resort to cleaning fruits and vegetables thoroughly – if necessary, with boiled water. You should also wash your hands regularly.

We need to develop good food preparation habits and resort to:

Dilution – Washing fruit and vegetables and salad lettuce. Adding a little vinegar to the washing water makes it more effective.

Drying – Bacteria cannot breed on dry surfaces, so keep all food preparation surfaces as dry as possible. However, most bacteria can remain alive for days, and in some cases even months, on seemingly dry surfaces, ready to multiply when more congenial circumstances return. Hence only drying is not enough.

Temperature – Most E-coli bacteria are killed by temperatures above 40⁰ C. Cooking at 70⁰ C for about 3 mins is enough to also kill off all almost all salmonella bacteria.

Cleaning – Means removing a film of fats and proteins from surfaces.

Remember cleanliness is a healthy balance of sufficient good bacteria and a few bad ones.

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