New instructions, use food and drink by use by date!

MayBee70

I think you can buy something for sterilising fruit etc?

Permangate of potassium - doubt it is still used, but it was used for sterilising fruit and vegetables that could not be boiled or scalded.

Elegran

MayBee70

I got a salad spinner from a charity shop. But the bowl has got holes in the bottom so I have to put it in another bowl ( that’s obviously why it ended up in a charity shop). So I bought another one off the internet but it’s a bit big for the small amount of lettuce that I eat.

If it has a hole in the top, too, you could wash the leaves under running water. I think that is how you are supposed to use it.

It doesn’t. The water goes everywhere when I spin it. I now just wash a couple of lettuce leaves in salt and vinegar and dry them on kitchen towel.

I buy iceberg lettuces and discard the outside leaves. All of the remaining leaves are so tightly close to those next to them nobody could get their grubby fingers in there. There's more dirt down the hollow parts of spring onions than inside an iceberg lettuce.
If the pathogens are inside through contaminated irrigation with sewage sludge fertilisers, then wagging a leaf about under the tap isn't going to remove it! Any vigorous scrubbing will destroy the leaf.

Colls

Lollin

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn72m1e3ylko

Oh the rubbish being reported!

26% terrible, the figures quote show that is just scaremongering if you look at total figures!
" infections rose from 2,018 in 2023 to
2,544 in 2024 in England."

And then, we are NOT designed to eat sterilised food!

"This could be because young children's bodies have less time to build up protection against infection"
OK, but it goes on:
"... they are less likely to wash their hands properly or because they're more exposed to risks such as animals at petting farms.

Blaming animals again! It's exactly by NOT being so hygienic that children build up their immunity!!!!

What rot!

Angry beyond words 🤬
I hope the most respected secret ops in the world, our SAS are aware of these hygienic practices they should be practicing when they are in some of the most god forsaken unhygienic places on earth.
Or, perhaps they’re all dying of dysentery and being who they are we will never know 🤷‍♀️

Oh dear.
I’ve just eaten some little gem salad leaves in a sandwich.

I rinsed some, then made and ate the sandwich before realising that I’d used the unwashed leaves instead of the rinsed ones.
Hope I don’t get stomach upset now,
And wish I hadn’t read this now.

I’ve recently (5 weeks ago) come out of hospital after an awful bout of E.Coli & gastroenteritis.
I have never felt so ill in my life, I couldn’t stop vomiting and ‘the other’ at the same time for 10 days & nights. Didn’t sleep, didn’t eat or drink, even my sight went for 48 hours. It was so bad I was taken in to hospital by ambulance and kept in for a week then not allowed outdoors for another 3 weeks! I certainly wouldn’t want to go through that again, it’s affected everything at the moment, my infection levels, my liver & kidneys and I was on constant saline and potassium drips etc. I caught the E. Coli at a wedding reception (beef) and a meal on a very hot day that had been sitting around. I always rinse bags of pre bagged salad leaves in a dose of Milton. My Mother taught me to do that with all salad leaves pre bagged or not about 40 years ago so that’s habit now, but I always wash all fruit etc anyway due to all the sprays I know are sprayed on our food.

May well be linked to all the pre washed ready to use salad leaves and of course lack of hand washing.

MayBee70

I got a salad spinner from a charity shop. But the bowl has got holes in the bottom so I have to put it in another bowl ( that’s obviously why it ended up in a charity shop). So I bought another one off the internet but it’s a bit big for the small amount of lettuce that I eat.

If it has a hole in the top, too, you could wash the leaves under running water. I think that is how you are supposed to use it.

I never used to worry - but after a couple of bouts of vile poisoning, I am getting more cautious. Years ago produce was more local and water supplies were cleaner... The stuff advised is a Milton type formulation - as used to soak babies' bottles.

I never wash any veg or fruit, unless it’s veg straight out of the ground with dirt, possible baby slugs, beetles or other bugs in on it.
Never had a problem, but I don’t buy bags of salad, too expensive for very little.

Lollin

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn72m1e3ylko

Oh the rubbish being reported!

26% terrible, the figures quote show that is just scaremongering if you look at total figures!
" infections rose from 2,018 in 2023 to
2,544 in 2024 in England."

And then, we are NOT designed to eat sterilised food!

"This could be because young children's bodies have less time to build up protection against infection"
OK, but it goes on:
"... they are less likely to wash their hands properly or because they're more exposed to risks such as animals at petting farms.

Blaming animals again! It's exactly by NOT being so hygienic that children build up their immunity!!!!

What rot!

I wash all salad leaves before eating. Tomatoes and apples too.

Love it, same here

I always wash fruit and veg before eating or cooking. It's how I was brought up . I know it was because veg came with dirt when I was young plus strong pest control chemicals . Even if something is organic I still wash it .

MayBee it was probably a chemical they used to sterilise water or babies bottles .

When we were stationed in Belgium, we’ll before the advent of bagged salad, we were advised to wash all salad leaves and other leafy vegetables in Milton due to the practice of growers there using night soil as a fertiliser. I kept the practice up for a long time after we left there.

I suspect the “bleach” smell would be a solution, similar to the sterilising solution used for baby bottles.

Personally I think you need do nothing more than a couple of changes of water.

I usually eat the pre washed salad stuff straight out of the packet except for spinach which I always rinse first because they had a scare and a recall because of E coli in prewashed spinach a while back. I always rinse soft fruits in case they have spray residues on them.

Mention of salad spinners reminds me of one of my daftest moments in the kitchen.
I'd washed some raspberries and needed them dry to fill meringue nests along with some whipped cream. So I put them in the salad spinner ....
Raspberry purée, anyone?
😲

I got a salad spinner from a charity shop. But the bowl has got holes in the bottom so I have to put it in another bowl ( that’s obviously why it ended up in a charity shop). So I bought another one off the internet but it’s a bit big for the small amount of lettuce that I eat.

They used Milton in the salad prep kitchen at the hospital for leaves. They went into a big sink.
Cut my finger quite badly on a mandolin there too slicing - of all things, tomatoes!🤬
Very wary of mandolins since.
Salad spinners are rather useful gadgets though

A little bit of dirt does you good. Can that be true? I ate one day past the sell by date profiteroles my future DIL bought me from Waitrose. I’m not a big fan of puds but I am still here.

I'm not sure that it was bleach. It just smelled bleach'y. And it wasn't going to be eaten straight away so they had to be careful. A whole plane full of people with food poisoning would not be a very nice place to be...

I ve never washed salad just eat it out the fridge Why would you put bleach in your food ?
Oh dear I m a goner

Just read that you can use baking soda.

I think you can buy something for sterilising fruit etc?