Cleaning Produce with Lemon Essential Oil

Lemon Essential Oil is cold pressed from the rind of the fruit, rather than steam distilled like the majority of  Essential Oils. It has a clean, fresh, bright, citrus aroma and is a natural cleaning power house!

What makes Lemon Essential Oil a natural cleaning powerhouse is a compound called d-Limonene. D-Limonene is a terpene and is one of the most common compounds in nature. This compound is used in all kinds of commercial cleaners, from degreasers to paint strippers. This hydrocarbon is super tough on grease because d-limonene dissolves petroleum naturally, and pesticides are petroleum based- making it an amazingly effective way to clean your produce. Just make sure you are using Veriditas Essential Oils, as they are 100% organic and do not contain any fillers or synthetics.

There are a multitude of ways you can take advantage of the natural cleaning power of Lemon Essential Oil, but today we’re going to talk about washing your produce.

Thoroughly washing your produce is very important. It is a common misconception that if your produce is organic or home grown that you do not have to wash it, but even organic produce can come into contact with contaminants in the soil. For this reason the FDA recommends always washing your produce thoroughly regardless of their source.

What you’ll need:

• A clean, empty sink, bin, or tub

• Unscented castile soap

• 10-20 drops Veriditas Lemon Essential Oil

• Water

• Produce

• Towel

Essential Oils are hydrophobic, meaning they are not water soluble. They “run away” from water and stick to the fattiest thing they can find. For this reason we need the castile soap to emulsify and disburse our oil and make the water and the oil blend together evenly.

How to:

• Close your drain and fill your clean sink with the appropriate amount of warm water to allow your produce to be fully submerged.

• Add 7-20 drops of Lemon Essential oil, depending on how much produce you are washing. You probably need less than you think, as Essential Oils are extremely potent. For less than half a sink of water you could start at 7 drops. Half a sink would be 10-15 drops, and a whole sink would be about 20 drops. Use your own judgement here, but err on the side of caution. Less is often more with Essential Oils.

• Add about a TBSP of castile soap right under the tap so it easily gets mixed in.

• Turn off your water and start adding your produce. Allow to soak for 10-15 minutes, stirring once or twice.

• Thoroughly rinse all the produce as you remove them and lay them out to dry on the towel.

*You can rinse loads of produce on just one sink full of this mixture. No need to drain and reset every time.

*You may want to separate delicate items like berries or larger items like melons and allow them to soak by themselves.

The added bonus of washing your produce this way is that your sink will sparkle afterward!