But today, with the risk of salmonella, eggs are one of seven dirty foods you should know about. The topic was for a popular blog for Men's Health Magazine.
"The most important thing here is that men's health has looked at all these foods and found that these are the ones that are responsible for the highest number of the 48 million food poisoning cases that we have in this country every year," said Clint Carter, the Associate Editor of Men's Health Magazine.
Number two on the list, surprisingly, are peaches.
"With fruit, especially peaches, or fruits with any thin skin that you are going to be eating that skin, they carry a lot of pesticides," Carter said.
Carter recommends going organic for all thin skinned fruit.
But Dr. Philip Tierno, director of microbiology at /*NYU Langone Medical Center*/, says washing with soap will do the trick.
"You want to make sure you wash that really well," Dr. Tierno said.
Oysters are one of the seven dirtiest foods. But people still love and eat them.
"Love 'em! I don't care I love it. I haven't gotten sick yet," said Wynter Galindez, a Fordham resident.
But you can. Raw oysters can contain bacteria or a virus, so it's number three. The important thing is to always cook them.
People who buy pre-washed lettuce, tend not to clean them again.
"It's fresh direct, it's clean," said Cristina Berl, a Hoboken resident.
But evidently, it is not clean enough because lettuce is number four. It still contains bacteria and pesticides.
Consider five as a trifecta of raw chicken, ground turkey and ground beef. All three are carriers of salmonella and e-coli.
Number six in the dirty foods list are cold cuts.
"The biggest problem with cold cuts is that people keep them in the refrigerator too long and they can actually grow an organism that loves refrigeration temperature," Dr. Tierno said.
Scallions are number seven because it is hard to clean inside the ridges.
So a good rule of thumb is that all meats should be cooked thoroughly, all fruits and vegetables should be washed thoroughly. If not, Dr. Tierno says, it's only a matter of time before you get sick.
