sYes, it turns out you should always wash fruits and vegetables “unpeeled with clean running water,” even when you’re not consuming them, Tamika Sims of the International Food Information Council explains to Huffpost, a blog aggregator. Why? He adds that it is the best way to “minimize the transmission of dirt or microbes.”

And yes, this applies to hard-skinned fruits like bananas and avocados, Trevor Craig, a food safety expert and director of technical training and consulting at Micropac Laboratories, tells HuffPost.

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In fact, the expert points out that the harder peels also accumulate dirt, pesticides and harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, and when you peel them they contaminate the fruits inside, increasing the risk of negative consequences. “It’s not a perfect process, and it certainly doesn’t make the food sterile, but it can reduce the risk as long as you do it safely,” he adds.

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