Cleaning

Just read an article in the Times about a researcher in nutrition science at UCLwho says that fruit and vegetables should only be washed in water, not soap or detergent, in fact it is potentially poisonous to do so, I've been doing it right all along!

I wipe the shopping over with wipes and wash my hands regularly but nothing major. My mam always washed fruit when it came into the house as she said she didn’t know who had handled it in the past. I have always done the same. My DH always laughs at me when I wash bananas but I have always done that.

Hetty I read salad leaves are washed many times in bleach water before they are packaged for sale in the supermarkets.
It quite put me off - and now most salads I make don’t have lettuce in but I mix beetroot with avocado, diced peppers, cucumber, salad onions, sweetcorn and shredded carrot.

We wash it all and have a variety of colander sizes to drain it in.

Puzzler61, most of it can be left for three days or (like frozen food) have outer packaging removed. I do wash or wipe the fridge stuff with diluted bleach, wait five minutes and rinse.

The best I can do with salads is a Milton wash - but I'm going right off salads now - had too many lately.

It's similar to when travelling abroad, really. Peel fruit and choose well cooked food, avoid anything raw.

I posted yesterday that I would not disinfect my grocery delivery, but I am not ashamed to say I did a U-turn.
It just doesn’t feel right to be casual.

The special cleaning techniques we have all learned in our several ways are going to be good for not spreading or getting illnesses like summer diarrhoea .

Puzzler me too, I had a problem this week with my Asthma, can’t sit out as I get heat rash, so the last thing I need to worry about is the shopping.
We take a multi Vit. Which says it has 100% of daily recommended dose of Vit.D.We’ve been taking them for years.

Oopsadaisy your post makes a lot of sense and is going to be my reason for continuing to wipe stuff coming into my home.

As someone who gets asthmatic complications with any cold or flu it’s important to keep well.
I’m on the Vit. D since I try not to sit in full sun for more than 10 mins a day as I have fair skin.

Alexa

Tesco has discontinued bottled CLO which I prefer to capsules. I will ring the chemist and see if they can send me a bottle of CLO with my next meds delivery.

Boots often has 3 for 2 on vitamins, Alexa

I've never mixed it with orange juice, I wouldn't think it would mix (oil and water)

However, the Seven Seas brand orange flavour one is actually very nice.
If I am allowed to advertise? Other makes may be available.

Nana, It must be hard after months that no one is doing the jobs that need doing, I would dread to think what my place would look like without the floors cleaned and vacuumed. Are you able to change bedding? It is really worrying that disabled people are having to cope alone anyway and essential chores are not being done for them, I think what you are doing now is suffice to keep Covid out of your home. We all wash our hands after handling post and shopping but I go over door handles and phone and remote with cloth wrung out in disinfectant. Probably not required but it makes me feel better. All the best.

Anyway, back to the OP.
Shopping is rebagged upon arrival indoors and left on the floor for a couple of days, fridge stuff is rebagged and fridged until the next day.
Why would I assume that the people who have packed and delivered the shopping don’t have germs or the virus on their hands?
How often do supermarket packers wash their hands ? Blow their noses, wipe their mouths?
Answer is, I don’t know, so I bag it and leave it for a bit, it’s no hassle to do it.
Did I do it before?
No, but maybe if I had I wouldn’t have gone down with colds every Winter, it’s a new way of living, not necessarily a bad way just different.
I have to say though that I do have’ underlying conditions ‘ and so does DH, So we have been very careful.

Argh! CLO and Orange juice, about a bucket of each when I was 2 weeks overdue with 1st DD, kept having to mix it as the OJ floated on the top, with small pieces of bread to eat between sips, basically to keep it down.
And , no , it didn’t work.
And you all buy it to drink of your own free will? Crikey ?

I bought bottled CLO in my local Tesco yesterday Alexa.

You are doing just fine

I just put shopping away and then wash my hands. I wash fruit and veg when I am going to use/ eat them.
Plenty of hand sanitizer while I’m out and about, and I wear a mask in the supermarket.
So far, so good!

I didn’t know Tesco had discontinued bottled CLO Alexa. I bought some quite recently. It was their own brand, 3 for the price of 2. I take it mixed with a small amount of orange juice, and quite like it. DH takes it neat!!!

silversand12, it's slightly reassuring the amount of exposure to vou describe is very limited.
Best wishes to you.

Heavens I would be a nervous wreck if I went to the lengths described by the OP !

I know we all vary in our attitude to the virus , and of course it can be a nasty illness for a tiny minority but I am astonished at the lengths some folk are prepared to go.

A few weeks ago I read that after a supermarket shop, some people were in the habit of stripping off once indoors, putting all the clothes (including their coat!) straight into the washing machine, then jumping into the shower!

I think it's all about balance and "you can only do what you can do" - which will be very different for all of us.

I live alone, disabled, shielding and am just not able to keep on top of cleaning - even the washing up is a bit hit and miss, anything else just isn't happening!

I can't physically manage to clean everything that comes in - it's all I can do to put it away - so my strategy is -

post gets picked up, put on the side and left for 3ish days (except today - it's my birthday so when the post comes I will be collecting it, opening it and then washing hands well!)
any ambient shopping just gets brought in and left for as long as possible, at least 3 days.
anything for the fridge or freezer I just put away and hope!

I always wash my hands after I've put the shopping away, and before I prepare food - but I confess the thought is there at the back of my mind about the plastic packaging, especially bags of salad - the virus is very susceptible to heat so I'm less concerned if it's something I'm going to cook.

As I say - we can only do what we can do, and what feels right for us.

Tesco has discontinued bottled CLO which I prefer to capsules. I will ring the chemist and see if they can send me a bottle of CLO with my next meds delivery.

I think the capsule is made of gelatine, Alexa.
For some reason, I tolerated cod liver oil liquid better, rather than the capsules. The cod liver oil with orange juice is quite nice.

I have vit D tablets but wouldn't take one every day, only if I can't get out in the sun for 15 minutes or so.

Vitamin D. I bite into a cod liver oil capsule as it is too big for me to swallow whole. That is unless I have just eaten oily fish. What I I don't know and would like to know is: is some of the vitamin in the CLO in the plasticky capsule itself which I discard?

BlueBell, the vitamin D part in all this covid 19 seems to me to be hushed up.

But all must not forget that vitamin D is VERY TOXIC when taken in large doses. Also it takes a minimum of 6 weeks to even measure in the blood stream and up to a year to benefit all those parts of the body it should be benefiting.

In short? bit late now.

Again thank you Bluebelle we need that kind of advice if we are not to remain recluse for the rest of our lives! No I'm not on Vit D but will be looking into it, what is the recommended dosage? is it ever harmful?

I m really uplifted to see so many on here agreeing that these OTT rituals are really damaging to our mental health and is really just playing into panic .... just act sensibly and stop being so frightened of it all get used to it it’s not going away and you can’t keep up these extensive routines for ever half off them are not needed
What is far more important is to take a Vit D supplement it has been proved long before the government jumped on the bandwagon that our Vit D levels are the most important part of living and dying with this flu virus

Do you all take Vit D ? Especially those shielding and not going out Into the air The reason Asians are lower in Vit D than black skin is because so many are covered up the women especially from head to toe, no sunshine getting in there