OK. I'll admit it. I've gotten lazy. I now buy prewashed salad from Sam's Club or Costco. I TRUST them to make sure everything is washed properly. I just use my salad tongs and throw bunches of the salad into a bowl, add dressing and pass it out.
The other day, the Sam's Club organic salad had gotten to the last USE BY date so I washed my hands carefully and started to pull out the spinach and lettuce that had gotten a little mushy. The salad had been in our fridge for 4 days. Suddenly I noticed something moving. It's a good thing I had my glasses on.
The scary thing is that my 90 year old mother is severely allergic to bee stings. What if I inadvertently put it in her bowl? The thought of it totally freaks me out.
I wrote to Sam's Club to let them know and they said they would tell the manager so he would be more careful. I wrote back that the Hawaii manager would have no idea there were bees in the salad. They needed to contact their producers. They said it would be the responsibility of the local manager.
Whatever the case, I now use chopsticks to carefully look through any salad I buy.
Oh, that could have been dangerous. I haven't had lettuce for more than a year because there were so many recalls on various lettuce types for salmonella and e coli that I decided I didn't need that worry. I never trusted that the lettuce growers/packers had washed it well enough, so for years I had washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed, several times and then spun it dry in a salad spinner. Then after the first time I heard a recall we didn't have lettuce for several months, and we got hungry for it. Then I started doing my usual wash and rinse routine, but I put just a small (a little less than a teaspoon full) amount of plain non-scented bleach into the water, I use a huge plastic bowl to wash the lettuce. I swished it around and then emptied that water out and rinsed it with clean water several more times, and then spun it dry in the salad spinner. Finally, I just quit doing salad, because I always worried after eating it, that my cleaning might not have been enough to kill e coli or salmonella. I was always careful to rinse the lettuce over and over and over again to remove any bleach. I don't think that a wasp would have survived a really good washing, so that makes me wonder just how the salad packing company did their washing, or if they really did.
ReplyDeleteThat was smart of you not to have set the wasp free. Quick thinking.
Good grief! I buy "3 Lettuce" and "Baby Spinach" pre-washed bags of greens every week! I'm going to be a lot more careful reaching my hands in there from now on... sure am sorry for your close call there, Kay!
ReplyDeleteWow a live wasp!
ReplyDeleteI buy lettuce that way too. And I"m allergic to wasps! I'm going to be more careful going forward.
ReplyDeleteI am with Susie on this issue.
ReplyDeleteOh how scary!
ReplyDeleteI've been surprised how fast bagged lettuce gets yucky, so I stopped buying them. I have a nice stainless steel salad spinner, so washing torn up lettuce isn't so bad. It's stunning how long the washed lettuce stays fresh when I store it in the salad spinner. But you need a bit of space on the fridge shelf to keep it.
Glad it wasn't a murder hornet, but killing it was best for Hawaii! Should you chat with Hawaii's agricultural department, the one that keeps visitors from bringing in fresh food products?
Stay safe! May need a mask and gloves just to serve salad!
Linda in Kansas
You know what? I'm thinking of just buying heads of lettuce again. They last longer than packaged salad. And then I'll know for sure that it's clean and insect free.
DeleteThat is really scary!
ReplyDeleteI don't like to use prewashed salad for these reasons. We've had some scares, like with California onions. Hundreds are ill. You can't be too careful.
Unwanted insects, unwanted seeds . . . what is the world coming to? Costco is great but I don't buy anything perishable there because you can't buy what one person could use in a week so there is advantage to that.
ReplyDeleteYikes, salad with wings and legs. I'd have probably released him also since he had been in that bag no telling how long and in the fridge for 4 days but you are right that he could be alien to Hawaii. Maybe the murder hornet started that way.
ReplyDeleteso fun to have you back blogging but not fun to find something alive in your salad...I was thinking of having some salad for lunch today with our pizza. Now I'll have to check it more carefully...lol!
ReplyDeleteSilvery glad you caught that, Kay!
ReplyDeleteYay Mom!
ReplyDeleteThat was a nasty surprise. I do buy bagged lettuce as well as leaf lettuce I wash myself. With our home grown lettuce, it's slugs I have to watch out for.
ReplyDeleteI buy club-sized bags of spinach every week and have never had a critter in one! Our Costco has a place to leave complaints, and if you put your contact information on there they will follow up with you. I wonder if Sames does the same thing? I would NOT trust the corporate office to pass things on.
ReplyDeleteGodh, I haven't had that problem....and it is a huge problem here too. Frightening.
ReplyDeleteStinging insects are frightening, especially for those of us allergic.
ReplyDeleteMy landlord works at a farm in the fields and she told me that there is a video of all that lettuce being washed in the same dirty water in the fields in Cali. which is why there is so many diseases in it, I guess. She also tells me wash her veggies really well cuz well, they use insecticides and weed killers in their field not to mention all that red dirt they grow in. Well I've seen salad being washed at a restaurant (no longer in biz) and all they did was chop up the lettuce and put it in a basin full of water and swirling it. Ugh. But I still did eat that salad. The best salads was at Hickam Officer's Club cuz each piece of lettuce had water droplets on it, indicating it was washed really well. I remember talking to a butcher at a PX and he told me they have so many stringent procedures that they have to closely follow. They have to disinfect everything! I think the PX stuff is just much cleaner IMO. But then I wash all prepackaged veggies even the local salad mix and bean sprouts. I no trust anyone else w/ washing my stuff.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? I'm going to go back to buying heads of lettuce to wash my own salad. This is too much to worry about. Also, heads of lettuce last longer, don't they? I'm glad they are careful about our military. I've only been to the officer's club when Art took me before we were married. I ordered shrimp expecting tempura and was shocked to get cocktail shrimp. This was well before we moved to the mainland and I discovered not all shrimp was tempura. LOL
DeleteOh how awful, I'm so glad you found it in time. Good for you on letting them know about this. We always buy salad ingredients individually, a head of lettuce, some tomatoes, other stuff, and so on.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Kay. Thank you for the heads up, my daughter uses pre-packaged salad fixings. I'll be sure to warn her.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend! Stay Safe, my friend!
Whoa. Good thing you found it! Scary.
ReplyDeleteBlessings.....
ReplyDeleteI hope you and your family are all well in this new normal we find ourselves living in.
Eeewwwww....i wash everything regardless.
stay safe
be safe
My husband never did believe the "pre-washed" hype and continues to carefully wash anything that goes into our fridge. But we don't buy lettuce because we get it from our own garden.
ReplyDeleteGoodness me! Thankfully you found it!
ReplyDeleteAll the best Jan