#1969: IceScrub

Washing fruit and veg is usually enough to reduce surface contamination by bugs and pesticides so that one doesn’t get ill when eating them.

It is, however, a bit hit-and-miss.

For people who have impaired immune systems or extreme sensitivity, today’s invention may help.

It is a sand-blasting booth which allows a variable quantity of fruit or veg to be placed into a rotating drum. Except of course it would use ice crystals, rather than sand, as an abrasive spray.

These would be formed continuously on a refrigerated plate set in a constant-speed air stream so that crystals of a given size were blown off the surface at a known rate.

Each type of food item would have a different recommended spray duration (tomatoes would need only a fraction of the time that carrots require).

This might even allow for more creative food preparation…and less waste -if you wanted to peel only the outermost layer of your potatoes, for example.