![]() MORE: Our Best Tips and Tricks to Make Fresh Food Last LongerĪs I’ve queried readers and friends on the bag versus bulk question, the overarching reason so many people go for the prepackaged, triple-washed, salad greens in a bag, comes down to one thing: time.But just seeing the difference in price makes me more than willing to handle all of that myself. That’s a 420% markup! Granted, I get that there are prep, labor, and packaging costs required for the bagged option. A fresh head of romaine lettuce is $1.49, or about $.83 for a 9-ounce equivalent. Paying at least four times the cost of the bulk option to get my salad greens cut up, pre-washed, and then sealed in a plastic bag or box is just too hard to swallow.Īs I write, Dole Hearts of Romaine prewashed and chopped in a 9-ounce bag is $3.49 at my supermarket. The reason I don’t buy salad in a bag is the cost. It’s not any of those things that cause me to just walk on by that prepackaged section in my supermarket’s produce department. And even though I am a believer that once you wash, cut, and prepare any kind of fresh produce-be it fruit or vegetables-the flavor and quality begin to degrade, that’s not it either. Granted, I am not a fan of limp, brown-ish, tired-appearing romaine, iceberg lettuce, or cabbage. It’s not even my concern about just how long ago these greens were cut and washed. MORE: The Best Way to Store Salad Greens to Make Them Last Longer.As creepy as that is to think about, even Consumer Reports assures that the contamination falls within the FDA’s acceptable levels. It’s not the rumors of fecal contamination when samples of all kinds of packaged greens from baby greens to spinach, traditional, and organic were tested. Watching customers touch and test fresh produce is one such indicator. I seriously doubt that any grocery store’s produce department is 100% bacteria-free. It’s not because I’m overly concerned that bacteria might make it through all that pre-washing in a chlorinated bath (although tests conducted by Consumer Reports did find bacteria that are common indicators of poor sanitation). Pre-washed, pre-chopped, ready-to-go salad greens in sealed bags can be found in the produce department of just about every grocery store and supermarket. Those bags are certainly a tempting option because what’s not to like about having someone else do all the work of chopping and then double- or even triple-washing? Even so, I don’t buy bagged salad but not be for the reasons you might assume.
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