After hearing about produce being contaminated with e.coli and other bacteria, i am somewhat concerned about eating a raw food diet. does this concern anyone else? how can i be at ease when preparing and eating produce?

LOL. I hear you. And meat and crap foods are better for you in the long run? Ha! ha! You can certainly rinse your produce in a light bleach solution if you are concerned.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I soak nearly everything in a food-grade hydrogen peroxide solution. I've been doing this for several months and am happy with it.

I wash my produce with a produce wash I bought at Trader Joes and I do not buy prepackaged greens - that is where the ecoli has shown up more often.

Food is supposed to have bacteria on it. How would our ancestors have survived if bacteria on food made people sick? They had no way of washing their food. Notice the germ theory has never been called the germ "law". Contrast it to the Law of Gravity, which has been proven and is consistent and predictable. Even the germ theory's adherents seem to know it has loopholes. Bacteria are ubiquitous and if they were responsible for disease nobody would be well.

Washing food in tap water or with bleach is more harmful than eating unwashed food. If that seems radical, you have been programmed by the belief system which holds that nature is always out to get us. Imo, the only time it's legitimate to wash food is when eating the skin on conventionally-grown produce (I do wash the conventionally grown grapes I eat) or if dirt is visible (even then I sometimes only wipe it off, like w/ celery).

The civilized world teaches us to fear the wrong things. Fear (or at least question) the information you get from conventional sources, and you'll be healthier.

Warm regards,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

E coli shows up in the intestines of cows because the modern world feeds them a diet they were not designed for - grains. They were built to live on greens not grains.

I found this article [www.sciencedaily.com] which has this paragraph at the end:

"Finally, grain-based diets can promote Escherichia coli (E. coli) within the digestive tract of cattle, and these E. coli are more likely to survive acid shocks that mimic the human gastric stomach. This discovery, first reported by Russell and colleagues in 1998 (Science, 11 September), has now been confirmed. Other USDA scientists have likewise shown that cattle switched from grain-based diets to hay were less likely to shed harmful E. coli 0157:H7 in feces."

The same logic applies to humans. We were not designed for a high grain diet either and the people handling our produce might not wash their hands well after using the bathroom and transfer ecoli to it.

Our produce could, as has happened in the past apparently since produce has been recalled that had ecoli, been contaminated by fecal remnants from animals or humans.

So, I think we have to take extra measures to protect ourselves (like wash our produce) since the way things work has been altered for the worse (high grain diets for human and animals). Of course, if you have a garden then you don't need to wash your own produce.

Just my 2 cents.

I usually don't wash my produce. If there is some dirt or bugs on the produce, I will just wipe them off with my hand. However, if the produce is totally infested with bugs or there is a lot of mud on the produce, I will rinse it off with filtered water.

i rinse
but i don't wash

so far
only spinach which is gritty
has bothered me

after seeing what all my child
puts in his mouth
and then spits out
or doesn't
and he is NEVER sick
(same with dog)
i've decided that cleanliness
in moderation
is all i need

peace-