Salad is always a good idea, but sometimes, you may feel like cutting corners, especially when it comes to washing lettuce.
You may figure that with iceberg salad, the leaves are already so tightly packed, why bother washing each and every single one?
However, it is better not to skip this step, says the Bavarian Consumer Advice Centre in Germany.
There may be pesticide residues that you can at least partially remove by rinsing the leaves.
To be on the safe side, you should also wash the leaves of the organic variety.
ALSO READ: Organic food is vulnerable to being colonised by infectious microorganisms
Another tip: It’s best to rinse the lettuce leaves whole and only chop them up afterwards.
When you break up the leaves, the cell fluids containing vitamins and minerals are released, and you don’t want to wind up rinsing these down the drain.
Incidentally, tearing lettuce leaves rather than chopping them after you wash them also helps prevent the release of plant fluids.
This is as the leaf splits along the veins when you tear it, meaning that fewer cells are damaged. – dpa
