Eat Cleaner

Mareya Ibrahim, co-founder of Eat Cleaner.

Site Editor

Eat cleaner, eat safer and protect your family while you enjoy fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry and seafood with a new food-washing product. Love To Know Cleaning sat down to talk with Mareya Ibrahim, the co-founder of Eat Cleaner, mom and working woman who wants what's best for her family.

Eat Cleaner: All Natural Food Wash

Eat Cleaner, the product name for a food wash that is all natural, odorless and designed for cleaning produce, poultry and seafood also helps prolong the shelf life of your fruits and vegetables without tainting their flavor. A visit to the company's website previews a disturbing trend in food cleanliness including the following facts:

78 million food borne illnesses were reported last year in the U.S.
5,000 food-related deaths occur each year
Food travels at least 1,500 miles from field to plates
At least 20 sets of hands touch produce before yours
Water alone cannot kill bacteria, pesticides, or germs on food

The last item in the above list is an important note. As Mareya Ibrahim stated in her interview, you wouldn't come in from working in the garden to wash your hands in just water. Water doesn't kill germs. It doesn't remove bacteria. It rinses away surface or loose dirt, but nothing embedded.

What makes food dirty?

Ibrahim: Food travels a long way from where it is picked to your grocery store or farmer's market. Even organic foods must travel. It is typical for produce shippers to treat fruits and vegetables with a wax to seal them for freshness, but that same wax also seals in dirt, bacteria and germs. Wax isn't water soluble so just rinsing the fruit will not clean it fully. Our food wash helps remove the wax, the bacteria, the germs and it doesn't affect the taste.

Taste was one of our number one considerations because who wants to eat fruit that doesn't taste like fruit?

How does Eat Cleaner work?

Ibrahim: The fruit and vegetable wash contains a coconut based surfactant and citric acid among the ingredients. The coconut-based surfactant is a sudsing agent that helps remove the waxy layer. The citric acid is a natural anti-bacterial and anti-viral agent. The product is also available in Grab-N-Go wipes that are individually packed. You can put them in your child's lunchbox and carry them in your purse.

To use it, simply wipe down the fruits and vegetables and pat them dry. When you remove the waxy layer, dirt, bugs and bacteria, you inhibit food browning and increasing shelf life.

What kind of things become trapped in the waxy layer?

Ibrahim: The waxy layer is designed to preserve the food while it travels, sometimes hundreds of miles, from the fields where it is grown to the stores where you can buy it. Eighty percent of fruits and vegetables are waxed - some organics have organic wax - to increase shelf life, but the wax also traps what is underneath.

Eat Cleaner removes bacteria and pesticides.

Carnuba wax (the wax used on most fruits and vegetables) is also used in car wax. It is supposed to be safe and edible, but the wax can trap environmental residue and more. In one test, they found 51 detectable pesticides on peaches. So we wanted a non-toxic food wash that relied on plant science to remove the pesticides, fertilizer and bacteria. Four different labs have tested the product and we're very happy with the result and the efficacy of our food cleaner.

What's the bottom line?

Ibrahim: The bottom line is that cooking can help kill bacteria, but it cannot get rid of pesticides. With more and more people juicing, eating salads and trying to live healthier, they need to eat cleaner too. Most produce may have been handled by 20 different sets of hands, trucked hundreds of miles and then handled by even more hands when it is put out at stores. We don't wash anything else just with water and here we are eating fruits and vegetables just rinsed.

Cleaning: Poultry, Seafood and Meat

Eat Cleaner offers a seafood and poultry cleaner that helps remove the "yuk" factor as Ibrahim describes it - the slime that is typically on stored chicken and fish. Unlike the fruit and vegetable cleaner, you simply spray the product on the fish or poultry as you prepare to cook it. The wash kills 99.9% of E Coli, salmonella, and acts as a meat tenderizer, sealing in the moisture and improving the quality of the cooked meat and fish.

What about red meat?

Ibrahim: We don't have a product that works with ground beef. Red meat is porous and hard to saturate without altering the consistency and flavor. Seafood and poultry are also far more of an issue with salmonella.

Will it work on eggs?

Ibrahim: You can clean the exterior eggshell (which is typically where you find salmonella), but it will not work on the interior of the egg.

Cleaning: Kitchen, Counters, Food Storage

The Eat Cleaner product is non-toxic, all natural and uses plant based science. Can it help you clean your kitchen?

What about cleaning food processor?

Ibrahim: Food processors have a lot of nooks and crannies. You have to pull them apart to clean them, but you can remove most of the bacteria by using it as a rinse after cleaning the food processor. You can use it on your cutting boards, your counters and even your food utensils. I like carrying the wipes in my purse or in my kids lunches so they can use it as a hand wash if they haven't had time to wash their hands before eating and also to use it on utensils in restaurants and on the go.

Can it help keep the refrigerator clean?

Ibrahim: I've never tried it on a glass, but I don't think it would be a problem. Most storage drawers are made of glass. I will have to experiment with it.

Eating Cleaner, Eating Better

Mareya Ibrahim shops for her family, like most other mothers, she brings home the fresh produce and she cleans it right away using the fruit and vegetable wash. Once it is all washed, she pats it dry and stores in glass containers in the refrigerator. By cleaning it all at once and storing it, the fruits and vegetables will last longer, and it makes cooking and snacking easier and healthier for the whole family.

Eat Cleaner can be found online through the company website and is available for purchase at Wegman's in the Northeast, Ralphs in Southern California and other outlets. Love To Know would like to thank Mareya Ibrahim for taking the time to share more information about their products and eating cleaner.