Raccoons May Wash Food Before Eating  Just because raccoons get
their food from the garbage doesn't mean they won't "wash" it
before eating.   If your trash cans are regularly raided by
these urban scavengers, you probably find this crazy fact
especially hard to believe. But raccoons, at least those living
in captivity, do wash their food every chance they get – though
probably to a different end than when we do [source: Welshans].
With access to a water source, a raccoon will practice a dunking
ritual that removes a lot of the filth from their meal. Holding,
say, a half-eaten apple in its dexterous front paws, it will
repeatedly and vigorously dunk it in the water, rotating the
apple as it does so, before dining [source: Welshans].  This
likely doesn't mean what we think it does, though. Yes, they are
cleaning their food, but that might just be a side effect of the
action. Researchers have found that raccoons will "dunk" their
food in the air, too, if there's no water around. Why dunk at
all, then, if clean