The deal with pre-washed lettuce
Am I supposed to wash triple washed salad?
No. It has already been washed thrice. If you are suspicious of industrial food processes and you want to be extra careful, you should STILL not wash your pre-washed greens.
Why? Because you’re more likely to recontaminate your salad greens than you are to improve their condition. What was the point of washing leafy greens in the first place? Let me answer for you.
Pesticides. If your leafy greens say “organic” anywhere on the packaging, then it means no chemical pesticides were used when they were grown. Hooray. If not, that’s a good reason to wash your vegetables. Pesticides won’t give you food poisoning but they’re not meant to be eaten and they’re probably really bad for us.
Bacteria. Leafy greens typically grow in fields, close to the ground. Sometimes, people and livestock poop in these fields near where these plants are grown. Or fields are irrigated with water contaminated with fecal matter. This is pretty irresponsible agriculture and increasingly rare, but when a man’s gotta go...
During heavy rain, fecal matter can get splashed onto crops. During dry conditions, bacteria-riddled dust can rain down upon crops like a malignant fairy dust. Either scenario could introduce bacteria — specifically Salmonella and E. Coli — onto the greens. It’s unlikely, but if it does happen, then that bacteria should be physically removed / killed before those crops become food.
This is not how you kill bacteria
Rinsing leafy greens will remove most of the bad stuff. Applying a mild sanitizer solution on top of that compensates for any serious negligence that took place upstream in the supply chain. This is what happened when your salad greens were “triple washed.” They are safe.
Ok. What if I buy sketchy-looking greens? How do I wash them to ensure I’m not eating turds?
Do this:
Put your greens in a colander nested inside a large bowl or pot. Place the pot into the sink. Don’t wash your leafy greens directly in the sink unless you just cleaned and sanitized it, which I’m guessing you didn’t, you filthy animal, so use a bowl.
Let the tap run until the bowl is full of water. Slosh the greens around with your hands. Pretend the greens are dry-clean only garment that you are defiantly hand washing. Be gentle and also get the gunk out.
Lift the colander from the bowl and dump out the water.
Repeat. Repeat.
You can sanitize your greens but it’s unnecessary and you’re more likely to screw it up than get it right.
But I really want to sanitize my greens.
Jesus, fine. Do this instead of a third rinse:
Make a diluted bleach solution (1 tsp of bleach per gallon of water, no more no less.)
Submerge your colander of veggies in the solution for a minute. You can touch the water, don’t be scared. At this dilution, the bleach won’t burn skin / stain clothes.
Remove the colander and let the greens air dry. Don’t rinse off your leafy greens after removing them from the sanitizer solution — the sanitizer needs time to do its thing and the bleach will evaporate as your greens dry.
Congratulations! You have just prepared greens so safe you could dress a wound in them.
Nom
+++