Do you wash your pre-washed lettuce?

[AndreainDC]

I seem to be fine with salad made from the prewashed lettuce in a bag as is, but my husband always seems to have a bad reaction to eating pre-washed lettuce that hasn't been washed again at home. Anyone else run into this or is he just super-sensitive? (Having grown up with some kitchen practices that make me wonder that he made it to adulthood, it seems strange he would be so susceptible to this particular thing...)

 

[Michelemarie]

What type of reaction?

 

[AndreainDC]

I was hoping to spare you the description... intestinal

 

[Michelemarie]

Poor guy! I have not heard of this before, sorry I couldn't help.

 

[AndreainDC]

thanks. have learned to wash pre-washed again from experience, and it seems to have taken care of the issue. It makes it a little less a convenience food, but I love the greens/lettuce blends available, so I often choose these anyway. Was just curious if anyone else had run into this.

 

[GB]

From things I have seen and read you should always re-wash those pre-washed greens. That being said, I never do I admit it, I can be lazy sometimes. That and the fact that neither I nor anyone I have fed has ever gotten sick has made me feel safe doing what I am doing, but I know it is not the safest practice.

 

[buckytom]

It makes it a little less a convenience food

i'll bet it makes breathing more convenient, tho.

if you wash a lot of lettuce, check out the oxo - good grips salad spinner. i use one for my garden lettuces: works great.

 

[jkath]

Last week my son found a small bug in our prewashed greens! ack!

Good call on the oxo, buckytom!

 

[Constance]

Just a little free protein to go with your greens, Jkath.

 

[jkath]

lol!

I'm just glad he found a whole bug and not a half!

 

[licia]

I always wash mine and spin it dry. We don't eat the large core of romaine so I have to take that out too. With baby romaine we eat all of it, but the other I use the upper part and the leaves. If you do wash the prewashed, you will see why it needs to be done. The only time I don't is if I make a sandwich and grab some baby spinach leaves or something like that to go on the sandwich.

 

[markr37]

I always wash my prewashed lettuce as well. I just don't trust someone else to do it right when I am the one eating it.

 

[auntdot]

Generally do not.

But then again one can put almost anything down my gullet without a bad effect.

Except for once, and I attribute that to baby eels I had in a Chinese restaurant. Spent one whole day ....., well, enough said.

If I wash the stuff, then I have to dry the stuff. So might as well just buy the veggies and make it myself.

Just my take on the thing. Have a great day.

 

[Constance]

I should, but I usually don't. I'm not feeding any pregnant women or little children.

The thing I love about these bagged salads is that I can get such a wide variety of greens in one little bag. It would cost me a fortune to buy all that stuff, if I could find it. And then a lot of it would rot before we could use it.

It's a real labor saver, too. Once I get the entree fixed, HB finishes it up and makes bread and a salad to go with, while I take my bath. He's such a doll. All 6'2" and 275 pounds of him.

 

[fireweaver]

Constance, i totally agree. i love all the lil field greens/lettuce mix/etc in the bagged salads, and don't have the $ or the fridge space to store 15 different types of greens...

anyway, i take a fresh salad to work *every day* for lunch...i just dont have the $ at all to buy lunch every day, and i find i have more variety with salads than with sandwitches or leftovers. one of the ways i have time to make lunch fresh every am is using these bagged salads or pre-shredded carrots and all, so i just slice up the peppers or mushrooms as needed. and after several years of doing this, without re-washing said veggies, i'm perfectly ok with not re-washing all that stuff.

 

[Claire]

I only wash when I've left them too long and need to pick out stuff that is too old. I consider these bags to be the best invention since sliced bread. It amazes me that a dozen years ago I considered the salads at a little restaurant called the Trellis in Williamsburg to be so great, and now I can buy them in a bag. Sometimes we do make progress in life, and we certainly have in food!

 

[Sandyj]

Yes, yes, and yes.

 

[pdswife]

no... too lazy...

 

[Michael in FtW]

The USDA, FSIS, and CDC have done studies and found that the pre-washed salads/greens are cleaner in most cases than home-washed greens. But, this is only talking about bacteria and dirt. There is a little more to the story - as I found out browsing around the USDA website.

"The mix may be treated with a processing aid composed of a chlorine-containing compound and/or an antioxidant or preservative during washing or before packaging. The package is made from special films that are selected to maintain a desired lower O2 and higher CO2 concentration than in air." ref

Mikal E. Saltveit - University of California, Davis, CA​

Due to some loopholes in the food packaging laws - a bag of greens can have been washed in one of those "processing aid compounds" and still be labeled as "All Natural" and/or "Preservative Free".

I would venture to guess that anyone who has a physical reaction to a "bagged" salad is probably having a reaction to whatever they used in the wash water before packaging. Washing again, at home, would probably wash off the offending ingredient.

​

 

[tilly]

I use to buy the stuff in a bag all the time and then one day I smelled it. Now I can't stand it--even if I wash it again and spin it around in my salad spinner, I still can't stand it. I wish I had never smelled it because it was very convenient.