Here’s why packaged salad must always be washed and rinsed

Salad is one of the most consumed foods in the world, it is light, nutritious and perfect for diet; the problem is that packaged salad can be dangerous for your health. Eating it regularly without first washing and rinsing it could in fact expose the consumer to salmonellosis. A study published in the "Applied and Environmental Microbiology" magazine affirmed this, according to which the danger is particularly high when you buy packaged salads in supermarkets.

When the salad leaves are cut, they release a liquid that promotes the development of the bacterium that causes salmonella, accelerating its normal growth up to 2,400 times. It is therefore necessary that producers of this kind of foods maintain high safety standards since also a simple packaged salad could prove to be fatal, even if stored in a cool place and if consumed before the expiration date. Salmonella is a serious intestinal infection that can be lethal for elderly people, for newborns and for those people with a vulnerable immune system.

"Avoiding fresh products is not a solution but, if possible, it would be preferable to buy fresh products that have not been cut or chopped, and always wash and rinse them before eating them, even if they have been already washed", said Kimon Karatzas, assistant professor of food microbiology at the University of Reading. To minimize the possibility that a similar nightmare turns into reality, it is therefore necessary to always wash and rinse packaged salads before eating it. In this way, the potential suspicious bacteria will be completely annihilated.