Fruit – How to wash soft fruit

A long term answer would be to grow your own if possible. That way you have complete control over your food. Or at least purchase from a local farmer that is willing to let you see how he/she grows their produce.

Even organics need to be washed. Most all commercial organics use a form of pest control (most likely diatomaceous earth), they also use natural fertilizers like manure and compost. None of those things are items you need to directly ingest.

The best advice I have is to wash then soak fruits and vegetables in lukewarm water. After a soak wash again. For foods with pitted surfaces, strawberries, potatoes, etc, use a soft bristled brush to gently scrub the food. That will get most anything off the outside.

Of course there will be trace amounts of anything that was sprayed on the item inside of the item.

Hope this helps.

The dates you have are probably brahi, whereas the ones you remember eating before are medjhoul. These are different types of dates, and have slightly different flavour profiles.

As for storage, they should be fine for a few days at room temperature. For anything longer than that, they should be kept in the fridge, particularly if you live somewhere hot/humid. I also vaguely remember an old Israeli habit of eating yellow dates frozen, or after a few minutes out of the freezer.