Ready to eat salad 'more dangerous than beefburgers'

Sandra Piddock

Sandra Piddock

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Bagged and ready to eat salads may contain cryptosporidum infections, due to bugs clinging to the salad leaves in the washing process, according to this report. Experts advise that you should still wash salad leaves, even those labelled ready to eat.

This concerns me, as I often buy bagged leaves in Spain during the winter, for when I fancy a salad but Tony doesn't, and I buy bagged leaves in the UK as well, because we only have a small fridge. What do you think of this latest food problem?
 
I had no idea. I tend to buy bagged salad, aswell as a traditional lettuce, because it means I can have a greater choice of leaves in my salad rather than having to buy three or four different items and then having some go to waste.
I think I'll wash them in future, just in case.
 
I think I will be washing my salads as well. It's getting really unsanitary to buy ready to eat foods nowadays. It seems that they are starting to do away with quality when it comes to putting foods on shelves these days. I tend to wash some of my vegetables from the supermarket now I wash all of them unless they are organic, but I wash those as well.
 
Never washed them. It might be a good idea but to be honest most of these news are there just to scare people. And for some reason nowadays people try to protect themselves as much as possible... but in the end it will only end up hurting them because the immunity system needs to work in order to stay in shape.
 
Yeah you right. We ate starting to become germaphobic and that is sad because we have forgotten that our bodies need germs and bacteria in order to strengthen our immune system. I still wash supermarket foods mainly because I don't like wahat tgey spray on the fooods.
 
I remember finding a little bug in my green salad in my school lunch as a little kid, telling a teacher, and his reply was "It adds vitamins, don't worry about it". I've never really been fussy about it since XD
 
I generally don't prefer the bagged salad mixes unless I am really in a hurry. I find the lettuce to be too dry, and often times I end up picking out too many brown pieces, which end up going to waste. I prefer to just buy all my lettuce fresh and unchopped, then just do it myself. The worst thing that happens is occasionally I will find a small fly or two in between the leaves. I do need to pick up a lettuce spinner though, since my salads do tend to retain too much water after washing them, which dilutes the dressing.
 
When I had a balcony I would keep one of those mesh bags and sort of hand spin the greens outside. I like salad spinners except the size of them.

Now I use a colander and a bowl and shake the things, it's not quite as effective.
 
the problem with salad leaves and there are cases from spanish growers they are sometimes grown in raw sewage and washing is done in the uk with local spring water,that will not remove the bacteria only any grit,i have been informed by a local who even commercial pre soak treatments do not make the leaves safe,
the leaves are never cooked so there will always be cases of food poisoning,
but I would not have compared it to a beef burger,still a top cause of food poisoning,they are a reformed meat product,
any surface bacteria due to cross contamination gets turned to the inside of the burger ,so this is why most restaurants will always cook the burger above 65 degrees taking it to the realms of Well done,to destroy more common forms of bacteria
 
When I worked at TGI Fridays back in the late 90's, they made all of their salad mix from scratch. They washed and chopped all the ingredients daily, and the kitchen overall was very clean - all the food was dated and rotated regularly, bowls of sanitizer to wash everything down at the stations, etc... However, believe it or not, even with all this in place, a gecko somehow managed to make it's way into the lettuce, got chopped in half, and made it's way to two guests plates in one evening. We were pretty shocked and grossed out by it. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes when the server brought the plates back to the kitchen.
 
OhioTom76 said:
When I worked at TGI Fridays back in the late 90's, they made all of their salad mix from scratch. They washed and chopped all the ingredients daily, and the kitchen overall was very clean - all the food was dated and rotated regularly, bowls of sanitizer to wash everything down at the stations, etc... However, believe it or not, even with all this in place, a gecko somehow managed to make it's way into the lettuce, got chopped in half, and made it's way to two guests plates in one evening. We were pretty shocked and grossed out by it. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes when the server brought the plates back to the kitchen.
Click to expand...


Wow, those lizards aren't small either. A bug I can see getting a death grip on a leaf, but an entire gecko? Wowsers.
 
I agree a gecko is not something easily overlooked. I would wonder why no one noticed but it probably blended in with the lettuce so no one saw it. But then again when it wss chopped up wasn't there any blood. I would think it would have bled on the leaves and someone would have noticed. Either way it's still bad. I guess everyone has to be careful with any lettuce they intend to wash and eat.
 
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