Fruits and vegetables must be washed and disinfected before being eaten raw.

Fruits and vegetables contain a variety of nutrients, some of which can be eaten raw. Eating them raw can reduce the destruction of nutrients by heat during the cooking process, especially the loss of heat-sensitive nutrients like vitamins, and it also preserves the original color and flavor of the produce, increasing appetite. However, due to contact with the external environment during processes such as planting, watering, fertilizing, harvesting, transportation, storage, and sales, the surface of fruits and vegetables is inevitably contaminated by various microorganisms (such as bacteria and viruses), parasite eggs, and may also be coated with toxic chemical substances like pesticides. Simply rinsing with tap water is not effective in removing these harmful substances, which may pose a threat to human health. Therefore, before eating fruits and vegetables raw, they must be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected to remove toxic and harmful substances such as pesticides, microorganisms, and parasite eggs to ensure food hygiene and safety. The cleaning of fruits and vegetables mainly involves rinsing with running water that meets the national sanitary standards for drinking water, repeated flushing with clean water until they are visually clean. Disinfection is often done by soaking with a food-grade disinfectant, followed by rinsing the disinfectant away with running water. When soaking, attention should be paid to the concentration and duration of the disinfectant; the concentration should not be too high, as a higher concentration is not necessarily better. Using the disinfectant at the concentration and soaking time specified in the instructions can ensure the disinfection effect.

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