Bagged salad is easy to open, great on a hot summer day and a super easy dinner. Is it safe to eat?
Let’s see what the experts say. I eat bagged salad and unless I am reporting a bagged salad recall will buy the Dole and Fresh Express products. I am careful and if there is a bagged salad recall, I check what’s in my frig.
This week, Fresh Express had a recall of 8,000 cases of Hearts of Romaine. I have Fresh Express at home but it’s Iceberg Lettuce.
Apparently, I am not alone, a contributor of US Food Safety, Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, was quoted on nbcnews.com, “We call it faith-based food safety,”and most of it is faith-based.”
Powell and Christina Bruhn, a researcher in food science and technology at UC Davis, say that while figuring out what fraction of the lettuce may make you sick is a gamble, they still place their bets on the bagged stuff.
“I go to the biggest grocery store I can find,” he said. “They have requirements for what they put on the shelf.”
Even the crisp heads of lettuce in a farmer’s market stall can be suspect, said Powell. They may be fresh and local, but that’s no guarantee of safety.
“The lettuce was sitting swamped in water for days,” he said. “If I go to a farmer’s market, I don’t want to know that it’s lovingly grown. I want to know you’ve taken steps for microbiological safety. If you can’t answer those questions, I don’t want to buy your lettuce.”
I will take my chances.
RC Anderson, Ph.D.
September 28, 2012
Over the years working as a chef I would always wake up early in the mornings, go down to the local farmers market and choose the produce that I would serve my customers that day. Unfortunately I have had a change of heart when it comes to using only local produce in my restaurants.
I hear from my customers quite frequently that they want local produce used, and we want to use local produce whenever we can. Unfortunately, I can not place that as a priority over the safety of my customers and their families.
I can not in good conscience choose produce from a local farmer that doesn’t have the slightest clue about microorganisms and food safety over produce that is grown on larger farms that are regularly inspected due to their size. Unfortunately with the way the new federal inspection system is set up, the larger farms go through more inspections than the smaller ones do. With them having more frequent inspections, that tends to lead to safer facilities.
I wish it were not the case, but unfortunately I feel much safer serving produce to my diners that come from farms and facilities that frequently undergo inspections, and the small local farmer looses out in that battle.
Hanin
September 1, 2012
We cannot gurantee the freshness, microbiological safety, or even the HACCP safety in those bagged salad. But if it is the only possible way to eat vegetables (in terms of time, place….etc) then it’s better than just eating junk food or no vegetables!!!
Lucy C
August 31, 2012
Its not the safety of bagged lettuce I object to. Its the quality. Most of the bagged lettuce I have bought was full of the parts I trim off and toss, not the leafy greens!
USAMaid
August 31, 2012
Uhhhh, I think you meant “fridge” and not “frig,” since this is an article about food safety and not the best positions!