Should raisins be washed before eating?

Question

I saw someone washing raisins before serving them in a bowl. I had never seen that before. Just wondering if raisins need to be washed before eating.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 27 '20 at 22:08

2

Raisins do not need to be washed. However, there are plenty of applications where a soak in water, wine, or other alcohol is called for. This plumps the raisins a bit.

answered Jun 27 '20 at 22:08

moscafj

78,942
3
129
227

score -4 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '23 at 01:30

Counter to what the accepted answer says, raisins should be washed to remove pesticides. They are LOADED with pesticides. EWG has a blog post on this, and here is a relevant excerpt:

Of more than 750 raisin samples analyzed, 99 percent tested positive for at least two pesticides. On average, each sample was contaminated with more than 13 pesticides, and one sample had 26 pesticides.

https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/raisins.php

Should raisins be washed before eating?

2 Answers2