Supermarket produce sections are now high tech. If you aren't careful you can get a mini-shower when the automated sprinklers kick into high gear just as your rummaging for the healthiest sheaf of lettuce.

There are several advantages to these timed jets of water including their ability to keep the produce bins at just the right temperature to keep the produce crisp and fresh looking. They also continue to wash fingerprints, fertilizer or pesticides off the plants.

Despite encouragement from savvy marketers to the contrary, you shouldn't use soap or any of the special produce cleansers currently on the market. Several impeccable health sources, including Mayo Clinic, and the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and Nutrition have published studies that report these compounds can leave residues as harmful as those you may be attempting to use.

Food safety experts tell us that the greatest margin of safety for cleaning produce is a 3 minute soak in enough water to cover the produce with a tsp of bleach added. The bleach disappears when your produce is dried. Although some studies have shown that salad packages marked "washed" or "ready to eat" may have bacteria on them, it is not a bacteria that is harmful to humans.

Personally I don't do the chlorine routine. I do wash produce well (that doesn't mean a quick pass under running water) unless I'm going to peel it.

Next time you get a shower at your produce counter you can choose to complain and make it a stressful event or change your attitude. Shake and laugh it off and be grateful. After all, they've started the cleaning process for you.