Four Important Cleaning Tasks in Your Morning Routine (Updated 2026)

"I personally try to eat about 85 percent of my food raw", said Dr Mercola^[1]. In this article,

Drink Your Fruit-and-Veggie Smoothies in the Morning

I have shown you one way to increase raw-food update in your diets gradually.

However, there are caveats with raw-food eating—food-borne diseases and pesticides. In this article, I will show you four important cleaning/cleansing steps to protect and improve your health:

• Pipe cleaning
• Water pipe
• Food pipe
• Surface cleaning
• Food surface
• Skin surface

Dr. Mercola once remarked that he personally eats about 85 percent of his food raw. In my earlier article, Drink Your Fruit-and-Veggie Smoothies in the Morning, I shared one simple way to increase the amount of raw food in your daily routine gradually.

But eating raw foods also brings its own challenges, especially the risk of food‑borne illnesses such as E. coli and Salmonella, as well as exposure to pesticide residues.^[4,12,14] In this article, I’ll walk you through four essential “cleaning and cleansing” steps that can help protect your health and make raw‑food habits safer and more effective:

1. Pipe Cleaning

• Water pipes
• Your internal “food pipe” (digestive tract)

2. Surface Cleaning

• Food surfaces
• Skin surfaces

Image generated by Microsoft Copilot

Pipe Cleaning

In this step, we’re really talking about two kinds of “pipes”:

• Your home’s water pipes
• Your internal “food pipe”—your digestive tract

The Mid-Peninsula Water District offers a simple but important reminder: “When your water has been sitting for several hours, you can minimize potential lead exposure by flushing your tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before using water for drinking or cooking.”

In my own morning routine, food preparation comes first—and that always begins with flushing the tap for at least two minutes. To avoid wasting water, I put that flow to good use. I rinse and rub vegetables—like carrots—directly under the running stream, then place them in a container for the next stage of cleaning (more on that in the following section).

While we sleep, our organs continue working quietly in the background—repairing cells, clearing waste, and detoxifying the body. Research even shows that a newly identified system responsible for removing waste from the brain becomes most active during sleep.^[3] In the morning, as suggested earlier, a fruit‑and‑veggie smoothie helps rehydrate the digestive tract and supports the colon in eliminating accumulated waste.^[2] This becomes the second “cleaning” of the day—and arguably the most important part of your morning routine.^[2,7]

Surface Cleaning (Cheap, Simple, and Safe)

This part of my morning routine focuses on two kinds of surface cleaning:

• Food surfaces
• Skin surfaces

We can’t wash away systemic pesticides—they’re inside the plant—but we can reduce surface germs and residues in inexpensive, practical ways. For raw‑food preparation, the goal is simply to lower exposure to common contaminants such as E. coli, Salmonella, and leftover pesticides on the outside of fruits and vegetables.

Here’s the low‑cost cleaning routine I use every morning:

1️⃣Rinse and rub  

• For hard‑skinned produce, I scrub the surface under running tap water. This removes dirt and loosens anything stuck on the skin.

2️⃣Soak in baking‑soda water  

• Fill a bowl with water and add a spoonful of baking soda—one of the cheapest and safest cleaning agents you can use.^[13] Let the produce soak for about 15 minutes, then pour the water out.
• I refill the bowl with clean water once more and discard it again to remove any remaining loosened residues.

3️⃣Soak in salt + vinegar (or lemon) water  

• Next, I soak the produce in a simple homemade solution: water mixed with salt and either vinegar or lemon juice.  This step is inexpensive and helps wash away what the baking soda loosened. After 2–5 minutes, I pour out the water.  (Tip: This water isn’t ideal for plants, but you can save it for dishwashing to avoid waste.)

4️⃣Final rinse  

• Add a bit of fresh water, swish, and drain everything well.

Why this works:

• Baking soda is alkaline and helps break down certain residues on the surface.^[13]
• Salt and vinegar/lemon act as natural cleaning agents and help remove any leftover baking soda.^[5,8]
• Lemons or limes are often cheaper than bottled vinegar, and they smell better too.

And here’s a bonus:

• Skin-surface cleaning: After squeezing a lemon for the produce‑soaking water, I never toss the leftover fruit. The remaining pulp becomes a gentle, natural cleanser for my hands or face. Its mild acidity—ideal for healthy skin—and its vitamin C content offer a simple, refreshing way to clean and brighten the skin.
• To reduce pesticide exposure from non‑organic apples: soak them in baking‑soda water for 12–15 minutes; if you’re very concerned about systemic pesticides, peel the apple (with some loss of nutrients).

Personal Experience

I’ve been practicing these cleaning steps every morning for more than twenty years, and they’ve become a simple but powerful foundation for my daily routine. These habits can help you:

• Reduce exposure to food contaminants
• Begin your day with a cleaner, healthier diet
• Gently deep‑clean and nourish your skin

I wholeheartedly recommend incorporating these practices into your own mornings. As John Robbins beautifully reminds us^[10]

“May all be fed. May all be healed. May all be loved.”

 

References

1. When You Heat Natural Plant-Based Foods You Can Get Cancer-Causing Acrylamide
2. Drink Your Fruit-and-Veggie Smoothies in the Morning (Travel to Health)
3. Sleep helps 'detox' your brain
4. Foodborne Illness Outbreaks
5. Baking Soda
6. Cleaning Never Tasted So Good (EWG)
7. HOW TO CLEAN OUT THE COLON NATURALLY WITH FOOD (LiveStrong.com)
8. What Does It Take to Clean Fresh Food? (NPR)
9. Systemic insecticides (neonicotinoids and fipronil): trends, uses, mode of action and metabolitesSystemic insecticides (neonicotinoids and fipronil): trends, uses, mode of action and metabolites
10. Healthy At 100 by John Robbins
11. A Little about Baking Soda, Baking Soda Book
• Baking soda is nature's most versatile cleaning product, a natural substance that has been used around the world for nearly 150 years to remove odors, soften water, dissolve dirt and grime, scrub soap scum, and even unclog drains.
12. Pesticides and Your Health: Understanding Risks and Practical Ways to Protect Yourself (Updated 2026)
13. Effectiveness of Commercial and Homemade Washing Agents in Removing Pesticide Residues on and in Apples | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
• After a 15-minute baking soda soak, almost all of the chemicals had been removed from the surface.
14. What Foods Are Most Likely to Make You Sick?