please, need help re: bagged lettuce - bagged salad - bagged heads of romaine - etc

mountainmist · #1 (**permalink**) 09-30-2006, 06:59 AM

Last year a friend told me that the pre-washed bagged produce has a special gas in it which prevents the lettuce or salad greens or bagged spinach from wilting, but that the gas which makes the bagged greens or bagged lettuce LOOK nice, actually destroys the vitamin B content in the leaves.

Are you familiar with this information?

My friend can't remember where they read about that, and currently this is the only information I found online, below. I don't have alot of time to research this this weekend, and thought that maybe somebody here already knows all about that special gas they put in the bagged spinach and bagged salad kits in order to make the food LOOK fresh weeks later when it is sold.

I've never purchased another bag of bagged anything, as I considered it a waste of money - surely there must be good info online about this subject - but WHERE?

TIA

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http://wholelifenet.org/newsletters/may2005.htm

.....here's some factoids about the bagged lettuce and greens we find at the local chain grocery. Although convenient, and better for you than poptarts, the lowdown is offered in the May issue of Ode Magazine: ..." firstly, add four pinches of insecticides. Two pinches of fungicide. Add two measures of herbicide. After picking, store in conditions that reduce oxygen from 21% to 3% and replace with a corresponding amount of carbon dioxide. This is perfect for stopping the aging process so the salad still appears fresh, but it can't stop the goodness being lost with each day that passes. Keep it in this state for anything up to a month. Then take some chlorine, 50 mg. per liter should do it, (about 20 times the strength of municipal swimming pool water), and gently rinse.Then, simply bag."

Now, if there's no possible way for you to grow your food, don't panic. Just do a little research on where to buy farm fresh food. It's tough competing with Walmart, which sells more food than any other supermarket in the country, so give them your business when possible. As Brian Halweil says in Ode, we don't pay for the social and environmental costs of our long-distance food system at the grocery checkout. About half of the 30,000 items in a typical supermarket are producedby 10 multinational companies. Remember not to put all your eggs in one basket....

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mountainmist · #2 (**permalink**) 09-30-2006, 06:59 AM

Last year a friend told me that the pre-washed bagged produce has a special gas in it which prevents the lettuce or salad greens or bagged spinach from wilting, but that the gas which makes the bagged greens or bagged lettuce LOOK nice, actually destroys the vitamin B content in the leaves.

Are you familiar with this information?

My friend can't remember where they read about that, and currently this is the only information I found online, below. I don't have alot of time to research this this weekend, and thought that maybe somebody here already knows all about that special gas they put in the bagged spinach and bagged salad kits in order to make the food LOOK fresh weeks later when it is sold.

I've never purchased another bag of bagged anything, as I considered it a waste of money - surely there must be good info online about this subject - but WHERE?

TIA

================================================== ======

http://wholelifenet.org/newsletters/may2005.htm

.....here's some factoids about the bagged lettuce and greens we find at the local chain grocery. Although convenient, and better for you than poptarts, the lowdown is offered in the May issue of Ode Magazine: ..." firstly, add four pinches of insecticides. Two pinches of fungicide. Add two measures of herbicide. After picking, store in conditions that reduce oxygen from 21% to 3% and replace with a corresponding amount of carbon dioxide. This is perfect for stopping the aging process so the salad still appears fresh, but it can't stop the goodness being lost with each day that passes. Keep it in this state for anything up to a month. Then take some chlorine, 50 mg. per liter should do it, (about 20 times the strength of municipal swimming pool water), and gently rinse.Then, simply bag."

Now, if there's no possible way for you to grow your food, don't panic. Just do a little research on where to buy farm fresh food. It's tough competing with Walmart, which sells more food than any other supermarket in the country, so give them your business when possible. As Brian Halweil says in Ode, we don't pay for the social and environmental costs of our long-distance food system at the grocery checkout. About half of the 30,000 items in a typical supermarket are producedby 10 multinational companies. Remember not to put all your eggs in one basket....

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mountainmist · #3 (**permalink**) 09-30-2006, 07:09 AM

I'm confused. I thought that chlorine was supposed to be a very dangerous chemical, and that we should exercise care when using chlorine bleach. What happens to the chlorine residue on those salad greens and bagged spinach and bagged lettuces when we consume them?

Isn't that a large amount of chlorine to digest?

mountainmist · #4 (**permalink**) 09-30-2006, 07:09 AM

I'm confused. I thought that chlorine was supposed to be a very dangerous chemical, and that we should exercise care when using chlorine bleach. What happens to the chlorine residue on those salad greens and bagged spinach and bagged lettuces when we consume them?

Isn't that a large amount of chlorine to digest?