Insect-Free: A Guide to Home Vegetable Inspection - Leafy Vegetables (1 of 4)

[Music] it's gratifying to be able to continue to offer the broad Jewish Community our U kosher programs specifically the very excellent and useful OU koser DVDs that have elicited so much positive feedback from Individual schools communities rabbis MIM and home users today it's a double thrill to be able to be in our children's home in my daughter's kitchen to present Rabbi ysf Eisen a long time oser Rabin coordinator currently serving as the rabbi administrator of the VOD of the five towns in Long Island New York Rabbi Eisen is considered a worldwide renowned expert on checking vegetables who has worked closely with the U koser experts RAB Lenny Steinberg Rabbi David bitzer and the Yu poim I am sure that the presentation brought from Woodmere New York today will enhance the Kus of thousands upon thousands of Jewish homes and may this be our Collective the [Music] reward it is my privilege to be here with you today to share with you some very practical information on how to use your produce most effectively in a way where you could be assured that what you're eating is without any question 100% free from any cashous issues but before we begin our actual demonstration I just like to extend a very heartfelt thanks to the sh for allowing me to be part of this one ful Endeavor and also at the same time I'd like to extend a a very gracious thank you to the hostess Mrs zahava fman the daughter of uh Rabbi Elio saffron of the OU who really is the force and the uh the great innovator Behind These wonderful DVDs bringing such a wealth of information to the cashis world and may he continue together with the U to be marbits Tor aashis and clol for many years the OU are the innovators of this particular area as well as so many other areas of cashis in putting together the tremendous amount of information about the world of produce they were the first ones more than 10 years ago to invest into a program which actually monitored different produce in four different regions of the country in the west coast in California in Florida in New Jersey and in New York over a 2-year period of correlating information about so many different types of produce as we will see today in the presentation that's being brought to you and they are the ones that have stood as the benchmark of the standard of basos of vegetable inspection in addition to this great Endeavor that the OU took upon themselves years back they continue to correlate updated information brought to them by the individuals in the field the mash and the field who are in constant contact with their OU Food Service Department which allows the OU to be at the Forefront in constantly updating the information the methods and perhaps new discoveries as we will discuss in this presentation about different produce now that we've finished the brief introduction let's now begin seeing the DVD presented by the oou on how to check your vegetables in your own home [Music] here we are in your kitchen we're going to talk about four basic categories of produce the first being leafy vegetables now many people have asked what is the difference between today's vegetables which seem to be an issue of in infestation whereas 10 years ago 20 years ago this seemed not to be a concern among religious people the answer to this is the Advent of the ban of DDT which was banned by the government years back because of the high level of carcinogens and therefore the spraying of these insecticides have been very severely uh Limited and the insects now have a New Haven a new [Music] home the difference between the vegetables that you are now viewing on this counter which is the green leaf lettuce the Roma the Red Leaf Red Leaf of course being marked by the tips being red and your Nappa otherwise known as Chinese lettuce these are your four open Leaf lettuces there are others as well that are not being viewed here butter lettuce bib lettuce in contrast to the two remaining produce items which is iceberg lettuce a well-known Staple in people's homes and cabage these two items are quite different in the way they grow as you could see they grow as a ball it gives the insects less of an opportunity to jump in whereas a open leaf lettuce such as a green leaf lettuce as you see it doesn't even clothes when harvested the insects therefore have an opportunity to the very end until it's removed from the ground and becomes the Bounty brought to your home can have the opportunity of insects migrating from the soil going into the very inner portions of the lettuce such as this aphid that you are viewing now right in midst of the lettuce towards the inner portion this holds true with Roma lettuce which grows as a open flower to the very end this is true of red leaf as you could see very close a cousin to the green leaf and even the Nappa which is a little bit tighter does grow in an open manner until it is harvested while as we said before the boil produce just tighten up and give a less of a window of an opportunity for the insect so now let's see how to properly prepare and check these delicious items that make up the wonderful salads that we so [Music] enjoy We Begin step [Music] one we remove the base from the leaf leaves we place them in a pan 9x13 we fill up the pan with water and of course we use the size of the pan which will accommodate the amount that you're using the most important part of filling this pan with water is that when we finally put the leaves into the water the leaves should have enough room in the water where they could be submerged on the water and be allowed to sit there in the Soapy solution we're about to put into the water and be allowed to just shed the forign matter that might be on the leaves this is a certified soapy solution or something similar could be used we place into the pan of water this solution we have to place enough to make the water just feel soapy feel a little bit greasy then we proceed to place the leaves into the [Music] water as such submerging the leaves into the water and let it sit there for 3 to 5 minutes as you'll notice there are not too many Suds that are caused by this soapy solution it's just enough to allow whatever foreign material might have been stuck to the leaves to just shed [Music] [Applause] after we have allowed this to soak we are ready now for the next very crucial step in the process we take each individual Leaf while close to a source of running water which should have a powerful stream we take each Leaf notice that the Contour of the green leaf and this holds true to the red leaf and to the Roma as well are very full of folds and crevices these folds and crevices are the perfect place for the insects for the thrips for the aphids to just seek a Haven of a very comfortable residence until they are sent down to the drain of your sink you take the leaf and while holding the leaf firmly place it under a stream of water with some strong pressure and begin rinsing from top to bottom while holding the leaf you're spreading out all the fold all the crevices and then you're turning around the leaf and doing the same for the next side as well and this process is repeated for each Leaf now as a important just fact to preserve your lettuce use water that's lukewarm or a bit on the cold side but certainly not warm water that could destroy the texture and the quality of the produce this is repeated for the entire pan of product assuring that all the Soapy solution has been rinsed off and removing anything which could have possibly been adhering to the surface of the leaf [Music] the same process would be used for your Romain rincing thoroughly also a practical piece of information while your rinsing to take your fingers and gently just Glide the water over the leaf spreading out all the folds and crevices this should also be done to all the open leaf lettuces that you might want to use as we said the Red Leaf the butter the bib however something which I believe is an excellent recommendation for those that are Avid admirers of Roma lettuce a very healthy tasty item that you use in your salads the better choice than using a whole head of Roma is to use a Roma heart Roma hearts are a premium product a product that the companies care very much to produce something as clean as they can get it so therefore it comes to you higher priced but a much cleaner product what you do with the Romain lettuce as you follow the same steps as we just saw the soaking the agitation the rinsing the even checking but there's an additional guarantee that once you finished following those steps carefully you will not find any insects at all in a Roma heart now let's go to lettuce and cabbage we are now holding a ball ahead of iceberg lettuce the first thing that we do is just to to remove the the core we could slice it in half or break it of course you're are going to discard the outer leaves that are not usable and now we are going to fill the pan with the layers of iceberg lettuce once again you're going to be using the size pan to be able to accommodate the amount of your desired product being used allowing the water and the soapie solution to get into all the fos and crevices the procedure is the same you allow the 3 to 5 minutes soaking [Music] time and then we continue with the same process now 3 minutes later we take each Leaf run it under water expanding the the leaf itself exposing the fos and crevices gently rubbing your fingers bliding the water along the surface of the leaf some of the leaves of lettuce such as this where they are actually doubled and sometimes tripled over areas open even turn it inside out so this way you expose the surface you open the fold entirely you place it under the water you go from top to bottom you turn around and do the same for the reverse side and you repeat this process until the leaves have been all washed now we go to the last of the items seen on the counter the [Music] Cabbage cabbage is split open it could be quartered and with the Cabbage we have a very waxy texture this allows the Cabbage to be washed off easily the grip of the insect the thrips which you could see on this Leaf when we turn around the leaf we remove the leaves we take off three or four layers of each section of the Cabbage until we reach the white part of the Cabbage which generally does not have insects we go as far as the white sometimes the wh is SE seen after peeling four layers sometimes the whitee in such a case is seen after five layers where you're now left with a completely wi cabbage you are to take your cabbage we rinse it off if there are any folds such as these we will expose the folds we avoid using the soapy solution with cabbage we avoid using the soaking method we only need to just remove the thrips which do not have a grip onto the surface and will easily come off by rinsing it with a strong stream and that is just continued with the four or five [Music] layers when you come across a leaf with the fold we open up the fold or it sometimes can rip we open the fold we wash and then we are finished [Music] one last word with a lettuce as we said before called Napa or Chinese lettuce it's a lettuce which can be a little bit difficult to wash and check because it has a lot of black surfaces which can appear as if it looks like an insect however the very Telltale way to determine whether this is an insect or not is merely to take your finger your nail and to scrape you see it's still there that means it's part of the fiber of the leaf and with Nappa also which has the Cabbage texture we bring it over and we rinse every leaf we make sure to spread out the folds and crevices and we repeat until we are finished sometimes in an unusual circumstance we come across a Nappa such a instant of discovering a worm which is certainly visible to the eye you just merely have to remove the leaf and just be a little more focused to see if that worm has made its way and how deep the holes are apparent and then the rest of the Nappa could just be washed in the method described now for the final step we've taken you through the soaking we've taken you through the agitation in the water we've taken you through the rinsing opening up all fos and crevices now we need to do the last step the visual inspection what are we looking for we're looking for what we saw before on the pre-wash we're looking for those thrips we're looking for those aphids and we're going to be able to spot them only through the following examination we're going to go to the window we're going to take the leaves and we're going to begin examining them we're going to examine the leaves by opening them up exposing the folds and crevices again and we're going to pick up our hands and we're going to look up have the light shine on the leaf we're going to look at the leaf we'll be able to use either your window we'll use some overhead lighting perhaps an under counter light in your kitchen we're going to look on both sides opening up the leaves opening up the folds the crevices but there's a much simpler way something which will save you time effort very effective but not in necessity and that is the use of the light box something which we see similar over here in front of us this light box what it does it allows you to place the leaf on top of it and have the illumination come under the leaf which will Expose and illuminate anything and everything on the leaf now this particular item that we see in front of us is a commercial life box there's something much more home friendly called the bug Checker available at your local Judea store that's easy to store that's not only used by plugging in it's battery operated as well you could place your lettuce on top of that bug Checker you could open up the folds look at it examine it carefully turn it over to the next side and do the same this will allow all your leafy vegetables your green leaf your rain your red leaf your Nappa to all be examined quickly easily a wonderful way and an easy method to doing the final step of checking your leaves now that you finished your final step you're ready to take your lettuces cut them up and enjoy your salads [Music]