The effect of water damage on your perishable items
Crops and vegetables in the fields and garden are marauded by fierce flash floods. After the a flash flood has subsided, its time to review the extent of the water damage both inside and outside of your home.
What should you do? Is it fine to eat the vegetables that are growing in your garden after the floods have pillaged it?
Some of the factors that you have to take into consideration while deciding on whether these fruits and vegetables are edible are:
• The extent of damage on these produce in the form of bacterial contaminants and sewage gush.
• Intensity of flooding in terms of silt accumulation and water depth
• Kind of produce and time the flood occurred
• The age of the crop produce when the flooding happened.
• Duration of flooding
Mostly, fruits and vegetables that are immature, at the pre-blossom or blossom state at the time of flooding, are fit to eat by the time of harvesting. Never consume fruits and vegetables that were stuck by severe flooding at the time of harvesting. If the flooding was light, you can do s; but in both the cases, you have to bear in mind the bacterial contamination. It is important to wash the fruits and vegetables and cook them well before eating.
Bacterial infection is possible in case of fleshy vegetables like tomatoes and pepper; and leafy vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, celery. It is possible for silt and dirt to stick in the leaves, vegetables and other openings in the garden produce which may become difficult to extricate. For strawberries, you should not consume it in any case, no matter what phase of maturity they are in.
Fruits that have solid outer skin like eggplant, melons, sweet corn should be rinsed thoroughly with clean water; before you remove the skin or the husk. You have to then carefully peel or husk it well before cooking. Bulb and tuber crops like onions, carrots, beets, radishes, potatoes are fortunately not so vulnerable to bacterial contamination. However, you should scrub them with water, peel carefully and then cook well before consuming them.
Flood water that is contaminated with bacteria and other microorganisms, metals, animal waste, sewage can find their way not just on the surface of the farm produce but also in the tissues of the plants. The Food and Drug Administration calls such kind of produce ‘adulterated’ and illegal. If your garden or farm near a flooded area but has not come in contact with flood, you can prevent cross contamination by keeping cleaning equipment and harvest away from such areas. If your field is not planted but has been flooded partially or completely, find out the extent of the damage and find out if it can be damaging to the healthy, by doing microbial soil testing. Proper food handling in the kitchen is also very important; basic hygiene practices should be followed like cleaning the vegetables and fruits thoroughly with clean water, keeping hands clean while cutting them and preparing them, disinfecting kitchen tables and surfaces etc
