You know the cost-of-living crisis is biting when videos of influencers unpacking their grocery “hauls” are viral on TikTok.
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Chewing through millions of views, fruit and vegetables are aesthetically plopped into a sink filled with water, piece by piece. “Sanitising” products are then added, ranging from the fizz of baking soda and vinegar to specialised vegetable soaps (“Amazon link in my bio!”). There are even expensive electronic purifiers, which shake, shimmy and bubble away in the basin, supposedly removing any nasties.
But is ASMR deep-cleaning your fresh produce really necessary? And is it all too late for those of us who can barely remember to rinse our pears?
View image in fullscreen ‘There is no fruit, even resilient ones like apples, that are going to be better off for being washed and then put away’, says fruit farm operator Rebecca Scurr. Photograph: Os Tartarouchos/Getty Images
For Queensland’s Rebecca Scurr, who shares what it’s like to “sell fruit for a
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