I wonder if (ZEOLITE not cat liter) was soaked in (actiaved charcoal water,
and used for that product.
Edit ABOUT getting sick from The water in MEXICO (washing fruits with bleach)
Good to have Oil Of orangano on hand Just got food poisoning that helped me.
or at least stop at a store, and buy oragano , and make a strong tea.
You might contact a fruit warehouse/packing plant about the postharvest treatment for Apples and Pears.
I know that they do add a sort of Wax to the fruits during washing, but I don’t know the name of the product, or how to get it.
C/A Storage improves shelf life, by replacing the oxygen level with CO2, and keeping the temp. just barely above freezing—35-36 degrees f. Probably out of reach $ for most of us.
Based on your rough measurements I calculated that you used about 7 Tbs (3.6 oz) per gallon water. Before I read that I tried 4 tbs/gal for 10 minutes and it only partially cleaned the apples. I than doubled it to 8 tbs/gal (4 oz), a little stronger than your mix, for 10 minutes and it worked well so our results match.
That really makes me happy. And I’m glad you brought this back up, Dan! Before even knowing you’d posted about it again, I have already been bleaching mine again. This year my apples have WAY more spots than usual because I got lazy on spraying. But the bleach still does the job. I’m sure it might scare some people, but as I’ve said, even the commercial industry does it and bleach- as you probably knows- completely evaporates or transforms into harmless things.
I wouldn’t want to drink it straight but it is in municipal drinking water and hundreds of thousands if not millions swim in pools with it yearly. As you said it breaks down into safe chemicals so should be safe on apples when diluted.
No…i sure hope I didn’t imply or give ANYONE the idea that bleach is safe in its original form. Only meant that when diluted with water and then allowed to evaporate off the fruit it doesn’t leave anything of concern behind. But no…lets not drink it!
I have been bleaching for flyspec etc before storage for years and I do seem to get extended spoilage free time. BUT…
NOW I was wondering if we backyarders can have access to the waxes that the big boys use to coat their apples at least ? Should help especially for those who try to store in “frost free” refrigerators which are really a type of dehydrator .
The Food and Drug Administration has a maximum of 2000 ppm chlorine on fruit and vegetables in a table I saw. A very rough estimate of your mixture is about 3 oz bleach per gallon. If your bleach is 5.75% that’s about 1200 ppm. If it’s 7.5% then it would be about 1565 ppm. From that I would use NO MORE than 3 oz of bleach per gallon water on fruit. 1 or 2 oz should work. Also should be rinsed after bath. I’m not an expert so do your own research before using. Don’t use bleach with fragrance, thickeners or other additives.
Here’s the table if anyone wants to calculate themselves:
There are plenty of organic farms that use a small amount of bleach in their washing water when cleaning fruits and vegetables. It’s GAP legal and even recommended by a lot of universities.
From LSU AgCenter (Louisiana). These concentration numbers are a lot less than what is allowed by CDC. If they are adequate than 1 tbs ( 1/2 oz) per gallon of 5.75% bleach is a good number to try. Less is using 7.5%. This table is for 5.75% bleach. Also PH should be between 6 and 7 for best effect.
Just bleach washed my heavily blotched Newtown Pippins. What a difference!
I used 1/2 cup of 10% strength chlorine in 2 gallons of water (it makes 1,600 ppm solution). Washed for 10 minutes, rinsed twice, wiped, let apples to dry.
It really helped with overall appearance, reduced sooty blotch greatly, flyspeck not that much.
I’m quite interested in using a bleach wash to disinfect fruits and vegetables, but I’m puzzled about what is a safe concentration to use. On the Web I found that the maximum suggested by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is 150 ppm, which is way less than the strengths discussed above. In the US the National Institute of Health recommends a maximum of 200 mg/L (approx. same as ppm), website: Efficacy of Sodium Hypochlorite and Acidified Sodium Chlorite in Preventing Browning and Microbial Growth on Fresh-Cut Produce - PMC.
Has anyone used such low concentrations, and how effective were they? Thanks.
I would have ended up in the hospital had I not been wearing a full facemark respirator with chemical cartridges when I put some dawn soapy water over an area of concrete I had already laid down some bleach. The instant foaming of the two reagents showed the chemical reaction instantly, and with the next breath I felt the burn in my lungs.
Dawn says they don’t have ammonia in their detergent, but they also give a warning about not using with bleach. Doesn’t really matter if there is ammonia present … we know it reacts with bleach in a hazardous way. Poison control could not confirm if dawn contained ammonia, but said I definitely would have been in the hospital without the respirator.
Would be great if mods could flag a thread as ‘potentially hazardous’ to ensure anyone attempting to replicate is aware.
Additional reference:
State of California Dept of Pesticide Regulation warning about mixing soap and bleach:
