Bagged salad full of it!
February 3, 2010
You might think that “prewashed” and “triple-washed” salad greens sold in plastic clamshells or bags are squeaky clean. But our recent tests found room for improvement.
No, we didn’t find pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, listeria, or salmonella. With our small sample size — 208 containers representing 16 brands purchased at stores in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York — we didn’t expect to. (The Department of Agriculture, in a test of more than 4,000 samples of loose and packaged salad in 2008, found salmonella in two of them. All of our tests included packaged greens.)
That’s so gross, but not surprising. Once, long ago, i dumped the greens in a bowl and served them and they tasted like the bag! Yuck! So now, i ALWAYS wash our greens, i don’t care what the bag says! Best to wash it yourself; then you know it’s clean and safe to eat!