Bags for life! what do you do?

Those who started their housekeeping life putting their purchases into a real shopping bag know how to use one. The only people who won't keep the meat juices and so on from the bags-for-life are those who would have piled the lot all together into one plastic carrier without considering cross-contamination. They will be no different to before, when they had blood smears on the butter, the cereal packets, the biscuits . . .

They will have to learn to keep foods separate when necessary. It could be a hard lesson, but they will pick it up.

Supermarket meat is pretty securely packed in sealed thingummies nowadays. I bet leaks are very rare. Don't think I've ever had one.

It is just another invented reason to panic.

It'll be something else next week! And probably a contradiction after next year's research [cynical emoticon]

See the thread 'be careful when shopping!' if you have a minute.

The American habit of using thick paper plastic sacks seems more environmentally friendly but they look difficult to carry.

paper (not plastic) sacks, obviously!

I know thread was about contamination rather than environment, but paper bags can be thrown away with a lighter conscience.

If you listen to the link the 'expert' has concerns about the outside of the packaging, especially chicken wrapped in plastic as well as leakage as tests have shown that the plastic wrapping is often carrying all sorts of bacteria.

I am not convinced that the inside of a plastic bag, even with a few germs on it, is likely to cause food poisoning. The speaker had no research or evidence that it was a transmission route. He just sounded like it was a possibility that had occurred to him. Not very scientific.

Makes you wonder how people ever managed before the invention of the plastic bag, with only a basket or a string bag and meat from the butcher wrapped in paper carried home along with their other shopping.

Not to mention the lack of refridgeration.

Am I sounding sceptical and unscared enough?

Well just maybe they got lots of food poisoning bags - but it seems an odd thing to worry about.

Well, we never had food poisoning.

Meat and fish were well wrapped in first white paper, then newspaper. Vegetables went loose into an old shopping bag, other groceries into a newer bag. Milk was delivered daily by the farmer's son with a horse and cart. You left a covered jug outside the frone door, and he measured the milk into it from a churn (his measuring left a lot to be desired, many's the time my mother went storming to the farm to complain of it being short)

Front door, not frone.

You do wonder if anyone is ever credited with having any sense at all, don't you?

Or, have a couple of plastic carriers inside one of your bags for life and reuse, and reuse, and reuse it.

Personally, I thought this interview was scare mongering, even though Hugh Pennington has had a long career in food safety.

He reminded me of a friend who was a personal injury lawyer. Listening to her you would think that riding a bicycle was one of the most dangerous activities ever known. The reason was she frequently represented cyclists who had been involved in accidents.

In his case he has spent all his working life dealing with food poisoning he now sees potential dangers everywhere, whether real or otherwise.

I went to a lecture on food hygiene where we were told of the unspeakable things in the bags of ready prepared salad. Never did buy them before certainly didn't after.

When I was a child I remember we had a bag put aside for carrying veg in. There was no such thing as pre packed veg then so it was not unusual for there to be the odd bit of soil in the bag when we got home with the shopping.
It's not rocket science is it. Can't we be credited with a little common sense, is it too much to ask.

Ah but WGG the one thing notable about common sense is how uncommon it is

Sadly Stansgran thats so true

Bags for life. What do I do?

Forget them each time I leave the house - which can be a painful experience if shopping with my eco warrior grandchildren.

I have cloth bags in the car, rolled up in my handbag and hanging on the front door handle. Funny how DH goes out each morning to the Co-op for newspapers and a fresh bread roll and never sees the bag on the door handle.

That made me laugh, FlickertyB. My OH does all the shopping and even when I put the bags on the floor in front of the front door, he moves them out of the way,!!