Visiting Ontario- advise please

DesertMama

Ontario chemo patients- please help!

My oncologist has granted me a wee vacation between chemo regimens, yahoo, and I have flown home to Canada to see my mom. I live in the Middle East and my oncologist has told me to wash all raw fruits and veggies in a special disinfection solution. I forgot the tablets at home. I NEED to eat some Ontario peaches! 

So my question is: how do chemo patients wash raw produce before consuming it here? What is safe?

rozem

hi desertmama - i live and was treated in Ontario.  I washed fruit and veggies under the tap, no special solutions and i did not pick anything up during chemo.  However i did try to eat local as much as possible, which is extremely tough in the winter months.  Almost impossible really.  You are lucky that there is a lot of fresh produce locally grown readily available this time of year.  The reason i stress local produce is that my dietician told me that our standards here for pesticide use are much much stricker than other parts of the world and should feel safe eating them.  If you really want to wash your produce in a "cleaner" they are available at health food stores like GNC

Denise-G

My Nurse Practitioner grew up on a farm.  She was kind of lenient about this.  She always told me just wash the produce good - I would peel peaches because they do get a lot of pesticides on them.  I get to Ontario quite often.

Love those tomatoes from Leamington!

marjie

I just washed everything under tap water - but for something like peaches, I would probably peel them...just to be on the safe side

Enjoy!

Luah

I never took any special precautions - just washed fruits and veggies well in tap water.  

kayfh

A woman I know who is a registered dietician, works in our local hospital told me that the vegetable/fruit washing products were a scam. That just as you wash your hands, wash your fruit/vegetables (without the soap!). Also if you wash your peaches and carefully dry them you will rub off most of the fuzz and then you can just bite into a juicy, luscious Ontario peach. We are eating them every day as many as possible because when the season is over in Ontario it's over for peaches until next year.

Moderators

DesertMama, there's great advice on this subject (and it echoes what others have said here) in Dr Weiss's column It's Wise to Wash Your Produce. Just click the link to go there.

• The Mods

Sierra

Hello:  I reside  Ontario and wish you a wonderful visit

I have not had peaches this year

eating mangoes and papaya, my favs

Just was them really well, anything

even cantaloupes

Sierra

DesertMama

Thanks everyone! I'm back home now. I had a great visit in Toronto and spent Labour Day weekend at our cottage. I ate peaches, plums, tomatoes, corn, corn, corn, and more! Oh Ontario produce, how I miss you!