How come for personal hygiene we are taught to use soap and hot water to kill/wash away germs, but when it comes to food we only rinse with cold water for a few seconds?
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It isn’t really about germs so much, although that’s a factor. Rather many fruits and vegetables have dirt in them or on them, as in actual soil, insects, pesticides, or waxes applied to them for preservation. Washing removes these.
If you look at something like leeks, you really need to get in there or you can end up with some soil in your meal. By contrast berries are often pretty clean, but heavily treated with pesticides, and something like an apple is almost always waxed.
It depends on the situation. Hot and even warm water can affect certain fruit and vegetables texture and color.
But firstly there are more proper ways of washing produce like using specialty soaps and soaking.
Also some produce you are just washing any dirt and it will be cooked in high temperature.
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