Bagged Ready-To-Eat Salads Safe To Eat

Are bagged, ready-to-eat salads safe or are they swarming with millions of bacteria, as several news reports last year suggested?

The Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter dug into the issue and concluded that some of the reports were based on the mistaken idea that all bacteria are bad. In fact, it says, lots of good bacteria need to be present to suppress the harmful kind.

Washed, ready-to-eat lettuce sold in sealed bags has never been the source of a safety problem, Tufts said after interviewing scientists at the California Department of Public Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, if the package doesn’t specifically say “prewashed” and “ready to eat,” plan to rinse the contents carefully two or three times.