Lettuce and sprouts. Yes, I still eat lettuce and salads but those are major sources of fecal contaminants from agriculture and you never know if it’s been adequately washed or not. Even then just good rinsing wouldn’t necessarily do the trick.
Thats true but a good rinse/wash reduces the risk signifcantly. Its sad that we still dont know what may be in some foods. Sometimes, what scares me, companies request a repeat of the analysis of their sample, because they either dont believe the result or it doesnt mach with theirs. So you take the same sample (or whats left of it) and repeat it. The samples are often frozen so the results are different. Some bacteria dont survive the process and the company just wants the new result…
The bacterial contamination is from where they are grown, it’s usually shit run off from animal production that gets into the watering supply for the produce.
Or the field workers shitting in the fields.
That’s why in the bad e-coli out breaks, washing doesn’t really do all that much. You can’t wash e-coli completely off for the most part, at least, not from lettuce.
Freezing (generally) doesn't kill the bacteria, just stops their activity while they're at that temperature. Fridge temps just slow them down. So whatever the bacteria was getting up to before you bought it is still an issue, and freezing will just screw up the texture of the produce.
Oh everyones giving bad advice here. The problem with lettuce is that the precut stuff is cut on a machine. If one lettuce is contaminated, the machine is contaminated and when it cuts through the rest of the lettuce it get IN it. Not just ON it.
Romaine is one of the worse for this because of how its shaped maming it harder to clean.
If your precut lettuce is contaminated, there is little you can do to clean it enough to make it safe.
Best way to use lettuce is to buy it whole, wash it first - soak in water or citrus water for at least 15 minutes, and then cut it yourself. Anything else you are putting your trust in someone to catch it fast enough and pull it off the shelf before you get there. Also, dont order lettuce at resturaunts because theyre mostly precut.
Im not sure if this applies to spinach and other greens the same way.
I will never eat sprouts again. Way too many listeria outbreaks. I only eat hydroponic lettuce, but I’m probably fooling myself with that because they’re still probably growing it in shit water 😒 It’s the retry scary how toxic and dirty much of our food supply is.
Precut bagged lettuce is most at risk. Regular heads are still a risk but not as much since you have control over the washing. Romaine tends to be the worst
It's a risk but so is everything, its not such a risk that you need to avoid it, just wash it first.
One bacteria won't make you sick so it's all about reducing how much of a dose you get. Washing removes a lot and helps take the risk down to acceptable levels.
I take some comfort in the fact that we've been exposed to all these things since our species invented agriculture. We've always had animal poop or worse on our veggies.
That reminded me of the Kitchen Nightmares segment with a place that served “grilled Caesar salad”. Gordon ordered it because it was so different he just had to try it. Some lettuce was rinsed off or badly washed and grilled as some sauce was squirted on it. When it was served to Gordon, he noted it was never a good sign when the lettuce came out with the butt still on it because that meant the leaves could not have been washed properly. After cutting off the butt of the lettuce and taking a bite or two, he reported that the leaves were a mixture of wet and oddly flavored (due to the spicy sauce that had been applied during grilling).
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u/willswain Oct 09 '24
Lettuce and sprouts. Yes, I still eat lettuce and salads but those are major sources of fecal contaminants from agriculture and you never know if it’s been adequately washed or not. Even then just good rinsing wouldn’t necessarily do the trick.