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> Marler also blames Americans’ love of convenience for the problem. “Mass-produced chopped, bagged lettuce that gets shipped around the US amplifies the risk o
by athenot 9y ago
> Marler also blames Americans’ love of convenience for the problem. “Mass-produced chopped, bagged lettuce that gets shipped around the US amplifies the risk of poisoning,” he said.
> Instead of shipping heads of lettuce or large carrot sticks that people wash, we chop them and mix them up in processing, then package them in plastic bags. In that process, Marler said, “The bacteria has a chance to grow. And a lot of people get sick.”
So it's not just the lettuce heads that get contaminated, it's how they are processed. This is reminiscent of the issues with large meat packing plants.
I've often wondered what effect that processing has on lettuce. Personally I prefer to buy a head and clean it myself because it tends to last a lot longer than a bag that's usually full of consendate and mashed onto the shelves by store employees, bruising half the contents...
- RandomInteger4 9y agoThat's something I think about when buying mushrooms as well; there's the chopped mushrooms, and then there's the whole mushrooms, and the former always looks kind of worse for ware so to speak, as if the chopping process transmits bacteria from the blades to the mushrooms. I buy the whole mushrooms for that reason and simply because they're cheaper.
- moate 9y agoIt's less bacteria and more general oxidation. They're not more dangerous, just less pretty (also likely less nutritious since many nutrients are destroyed by oxidation)
- Gibbon1 9y ago> I've often wondered what effect that processing has on lettuce. Yeah the difference is the head of lettuce is alive and the chopped stuff is dead. Better is it's been 'washed' AKA inoculated with whatever bacteria is living in the wash water.