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: 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 for the reasons you might assume.
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). I seriously doubt any grocery store’s produce department is 100 percent bacteria-free. Watching customers touch and test fresh produce is one such indicator.
