Keeping Produce Safe

Food Handling and Safety Information: Keeping produce safe from food borne illnesses.

Once fruits and vegetables are picked they begin to lose their nutrients. While there is no way to avoid this loss, the produce you purchase from a local grower (that would be us) will almost always be as fresh as you can get unless you grew it yourself, and so can be much more nutrient dense. That is a big plus to buying locally since that the produce is generally picked right before you get it. It will also last longer than supermarket or trucked in produce. And you can easily increase the staying power of any of your vegetables by simply storing them properly.

One way to keep veggies fresher is to keep as much air away from the vegetables as possible once you get them home. Modern refrigerators have a very drying effect on foods exposed to the air in them and you want to avoid that. That is why there is a "crisper" or special drawer in your 'fridge to put produce in. If you are going to store your produce in plastic bags, try to get them as airtight as possible.

There are "GreenBags" that are specially made to prolong the life of veggies and can be a good idea for some things. They do tend to be hard to get completely clean when you wash them and can become contaminated themselves if stored too long. They really do work pretty well but you need to make sure you pay attention to how long you use them and replace them more often than the literature recommends.

Reusing grocery store plastic bags might seem like a really "green" way to recycle them but I don't know too many people who wash their plastic grocery bags before reusing them. The reality of reusing plastic grocery bags is that they can be grossly infected with bacteria from whatever was in them before. Things like meat and milk, purchased at the supermarket are rarely without potential for pathogens. Leaky packages, milk cartons that sit on shelves where spilled milk is present introduces these bacteria into the bag they are brought home from the market in. By putting something into that bag after it has been exposed, you are introducing that contamination to whatever you put in the bag. Seems like it should be simple common sense, yet people do this kind of thing all the time.

Being a strong steward of the environment I like the idea of alternatives to plastic use when possible.  You can buy or make organic cotton or hemp mesh bags that can be used to store veggies in the refrigerator, just like plastic.  They are completely washable and are far easier to remove possible contamination from this type of bag. There is also a special type of mesh fabric used to make this type of bag that absorbs moisture and keeps veggies hydrated without allowing them to dry out.  These types of bags are relatively easy to find (for purchase) and of course, you could make your own. Just do a little research about the type of fabric, like whether or not the fabric has been chemically treated, etc...so actually, it is probably easier to buy them.

Farm Direct versus Supermarket

The produce you get from our CSA will be many times cleaner than what you purchase at the supermarket, simply because there have been fewer opportunities for contamination to occur. Generally we  pick it bring it in from the field and pack it all within just a few hours, reducing the number of times it is handled and reducing the chance of it coming in contact with potential contaminants. As a certified organic grower, we were required to wash our bins using an acceptable procedure after each use, too. 

Keep in mind that hardly anything you get in your CSA share will have been washed nor is it ready to eat. At our farm, we do hydro-cool some of our field crops but not many. Hydro-cooling is merely a brief soaking in clean, cool water to lower the temperature quickly and to preserve freshness. We use the same water we drink for this process and we also have our water tested for pathogens and chemicals periodically.  You should still make sure to use practice safe food handling when using any produce, no matter the source.

Although washing produce with tap water is usually adequate, no washing method completely removes or kills all microbes which may be present on the produce. Since local produce comes from field directly to you, exposure to possible microbes can be reduced. Also, part of any organic certification requires the use of safe handling procedures which could further reduce the risks. 

To find information on the safe handling of meats or poultry, visit MeatSafety.org