Why You Shouldn't Wash Apples As Soon As You Get Home

Many people grow up being told to wash their fruit before eating it by parents or other adults in their life. Though many a child has ignored this advice and taken a sneaky bite of an unwashed apple, there is a legitimate reason for this; produce is often exposed to chemicals like pesticides as well as harmful bacteria and fungi before being harvested. Washing your fruit helps to make sure your healthy snack doesn't lead to symptoms of nausea, diarrhea, headache, or in severe cases, something as life-threatening as cancer.

However, washing off all of your apples right after a trip to the grocery store is not the most effective way to do it. Rather, you should wash each apple just before you eat it. This may seem counterintuitive, as it takes more time overall, but washing an apple too early can loop right back around into making it dangerous again.

As food safety educator Shannon Stover told MarthaStewart.com, "If you wash the apples prior to storage, you may be promoting bacterial growth, [which can] speed up spoilage." Bacteria thrive in damp environments, so introducing excess moisture to your apple before letting it sit creates a more significant risk of bacteria growing on it and spoiling the apple prematurely. At best, this means you have to throw out apples you paid good money for; at worst, you may accidentally take a bite of a rotten apple. It's not worth the risk when you can easily wash an apple just before eating it instead.

Apples are an especially important food to wash, as they ranked high on the list of produce that contains the most pesticides back in 2022. Thankfully, washing apples is not an overly complicated nor time consuming task. At its simplest, all you need to do is simply run the entire surface under water, rub the peel, and pat it dry. You should do this even if you plan to peel the apple, as pesticides can transfer from the peeler onto the fruit's flesh. If you're worried that a rinse isn't doing the trick, washing apples with baking soda is the most effective way to remove pesticides.

In addition to waiting to wash it, if you want to keep your apples good for longer, you should also consider storing them in the fridge. In our rundown of tips for how to keep various fruits good for longer, we covered that apples will begin to get mushy after being on the counter for about a week but can stay good for several weeks in the fridge. Also, keep apples away from pungent foods like onions and meat, as apples will absorb the odor and, therefore, the taste of these items. Doing all of this will ensure that you don't waste money on produce that goes bad prematurely or eat anything that could be dangerous to you.