I add salt and vinegar. I have no idea how much I use per gallon. I would say about 1/2 cup of salt and 2 cups of vinegar to 25 gallons.

This solution keeps things crisp and removes slugs. If you have hard water you really do need vinegar to soften the water to get more dirt off of the leaves.

I have a question in this area also. I was told by the ag. dept. that I didn't need any special permit to sell my veggies roadside as long as I didn't "process" them which included washing them. How are you preparing your lettuces? Also to keep the head lettuces,I was thinking of pulling them whole with the roots attached and putting them in a trough with cold water to keep them fresh and then trimming them when sold. Any suggestions?

I sell my head lettuce without washing it. We just put it in a lettuce bag (ones that look like a funnel sort of) and instruct customers to wash before using. If you are careful when picking not much soil gets on it anyway.

I wouldn't put them in a water bath, easy to pick up pathogens, but do keep them chilled until sale.

Washing could be a problem if you do not have water treatment facilities or are using non-potable water, but best to check with your local health authority.

I ignore the processing issue with greens as in Ohio using a metal knife to cut spring mix is processing as is the act of putting a head of lettuce into a plastic bag.

I use salt and vinegar in the wash water as both are killers of most pathogens. In 15 years of doing this I have never had a complaint.

Hydro-cooling is the best way by far to get the field heat out of greens and will allow your lettuce to store for at least 15 days (and for me usually 25 days). You may be thinking "But I would never sell lettuce that is THAT old" and i would hope ypu do not but your customers probably will not use the lettuce in under 5 days and a lot of people leave the produce in the fridge for 1 to 2 weeks and expect it to be fresh when they finally get around to using it.

Non hydro cooled greens will not last more than 10 days and usually they start to go after 5 days, even if they are put into a 38F fridge within 30 minutes after harvest.

Dirt is not the issue with washing-I always tell my customer to wash all their greens as a field wash will not get all the dirt off (but hopefully all the slugs and spiders). The issue is getting the heat out of the produce so it will store better, be of better quality and lose less nutrients.

I add salt or vinegar to the water when washing lettuce, brocolli or other garden produce. It helps to get rid of any bugs. Unfortunatly, heat is not a problem in my area, which is why I am forced to grow cold weather crops.

boulderbelt, how do you hydro-cool your lettuce?

I hydro-cool by dumping the produce into cold water. Hydro cool means cooling with water rather that cooling with air

What proportions are we talking here? ie: how many ounces of hydrogen peroxide to a gallon of water is sufficient to sterilize produce?

how many ounces of hydrogen peroxide to a gallon of water is sufficient to sterilize produce?

Anoid1, I would respectfully suggest that you are not going to sterilize any produce with any amount of hydrogen peroxide that you could conceivably use. As for 'hydrogen dioxide ... HO2', there is no such a compound.

Why not just contact your state agricultural department or health department for their current recommendations, rather than take a chance on something that you read on an Internet forum?

ThinMan

CHLORINE BASED SANITATION CHEMISTRY MAY NOT BE THE BEST BET ANYMOREÂÂ

THE PEROXYACETIC ACID/HYDROGEN "DIOXIDE" SANITIZERS MAY BE POSITIONED TO REPLACE CHLORINE ON FRUIT AND IN SEPARTION TANKS.

www.BioSafeSystems.com

There is a reason why your DIOXIDE is in quotes in your article title. Its just a way of representing the peroxide as it loses a hyrodgen atom in solution with water. It would be no different than if the people using vinager (C2H4O2) named it something different when it lost its hydrogen in solution and called it C2H3O2.

The "Speciman label" for ZeroTol says...

ACTIVE INGREDIENT:
Hydrogen Dioxide: 27%
OTHER INGREDIENTS: 73%

But on the MSDS where Federal Regulations make you tell whats really in it...

DOT Shipping Name: Hydrogen Peroxide and
peroxyacetic acid mixture, stabilized, not more
than 5% Peroxyacetic acid.

And just because something has hydrogen and oxygen in it doesnt make it as safe as water. H20 is great and fine. H202 concentrated will eat the flesh off your arm. Chemical structure means something too. There is a big difference in saying your DOG is dead and your GOD is dead.

Using vinager looks to be doing the same thing as using this peroxide solution. Both are washing with a weak acid.

when it drys up it does not leave a residue except water. This is why it is considered organic. When you purchase the product it will come with instructions and warnings of danger. I am not sure of the concentration used but I will guess about an ounce in a gallon of water. But as you use it then it will get weaker so I guess it depends on how you use it.

vinegar will leave a residue when it is dry. Vinegar and ZeroTol are different. ZeroTol is much stronger as an oxidizer. Like you said it will eat your flesh away but vinegar will not do that. An ounce of vinegar in a gallon of water will not sterlize or kill all germs etc

You use vinegar and I will use zerotol and then both of us will be happy. The big commercial industry uses zerotol for a reason.

How fun. It looks like we are having a little chemistry discussion now. I hope I can do this without getting anyone too worked up, but please let me point out a few teensy misstatements I have seen, none of which have much to do with the original topic.

Hydrogen dioxide is simply what some people choose to call hydrogen peroxide, H2O2. I have no idea why. Hydrogen peroxide is the correct chemical name. Hydrogen dioxide is not HO2. HO2 is called hydrogen superoxide by chemists and is only stable well below -40 C. You won't find a bottle of it sitting on a shelf somewhere.

In water, each H2O2 molecule will lose an oxygen atom (not a hydrogen) and leave H2O. The free oxygen created is a pretty good germ killer, and is what you see bubbling up when you put hydrogen peroxide on a cut. (Yes, if it is a weak acid, there must be a few H+ ions produced, but not many. It is a much weaker acid than vinegar.)

"when it drys up it does not leave a residue except water. This is why it is considered organic"

I don't know if it is considered organic or not, but I doubt that leaving no residue is a factor. Concentrated hydrochloric acid will evaporate without leaving a residue too, but is it considered it organic?

If you feel that I am mistaken about any of this, please try to give a reference to support your claim. An advertisement on a commercial website trying to promote a product probably isn't the best kind of reference. An MSDS is a good one.

Regards,
ThinMan

A weak salt solution has been shown to remove pesticides more effectively than water alone, but does not do much on pathogenic bacteria. Some sort of chlorinated soak is the preferred treatment to reduce the chance of bacterial disease, but people hate the idea of bleach, so peroxide treatments rule.

Vinegar solution soaks have not been shown to significantly decrease pathogenic bacteria, and if acid alone could, one would think our stomach acids would do the job. No such luck.

I soak first in a mild salt water (5min.), then to a 3% bleach (3min), followed by a clean water rinse. All of these are brief. Drain and spin, then refrigerate.