Since childhood, we are taught to wash vegetables and fruit thoroughly before eating to get rid of harmful bacteria. But it seems that many people are only now realizing that they have been washing broccoli ineffectively all their lives.
Most of us simply rinse vegetables and fruit under the tap, or perhaps place them in a sieve first, but it turns out that a more specialized technique is needed to wash broccoli to remove all impurities.
A TikTok user, Sidney Raz, who regularly shares useful tips, recently posted a video in which he confesses to having washed broccoli in a very ineffective way his entire adult life. But after demonstrating the ‘correct’ way, it turned out that he was far from alone, and many people were surprised to learn that they should wash broccoli before cooking.
“Here’s something I didn’t know until my 30s: broccoli should be rinsed from the bottom,” Sidney said in the video.
The video, in which Sidney demonstrates both methods one after the other, has now been viewed by more than 1.3 million people and has become incredibly popular. Sidney first holds the broccoli by the stem so the crown is directly under the tap, and the water visibly runs down the side without getting into the smaller spaces between the branches.
Sidney then turns the broccoli upside down, with the stem up, and holds it under the tap. This time, you can see that the water flows through the broccoli, instead of just running off the top, it gets into the smaller spaces and cracks, so it can be ensured that no dirt is left between the rosettes.
@sidneyraz sure it makes sense now that i do it #tipsandtricks #todayilearned #cookingtips #broccoli ♬ original sound – sidneyraz
The viewers seem to be completely impressed by this simple but efficient technique, and most of the commenters admitted that they hadn’t known this trick before. “I never knew this. I always cut it up and soaked it,” wrote one commenter.
“Well, I’m in my 40s and just found out about this,” added another.
“You have completely changed my broccoli cleaning method with this discovery,” noted a third commenter.
“How have we lived in the dark for so long? It always surprises me when I discover something new I never knew,” wrote a fourth user.
But there were also some who admitted they hadn’t even known they were supposed to wash this vegetable.
“Do you have to rinse broccoli? I never knew you had to wash it,” a viewer wrote, while another commented, “I usually just put it in boiling water. Should I rinse before cooking?”