Salad is the food that most people in this generation choose to eat. Eating healthy and living a healthier lifestyle is number one on the list of almost every person in the world. Many think eating fresh and green vegetables and fruits from salad bars or markets would do the trick, however, how can we make sure that these greens are clean?
An article in Food Safety said that one TV station in South Carolina asked 15 different salad bar items to be tested for any pathogen contamination. The lab results showed that there were no E. Coli or Salmonella were present, but they were able to find a high number of microbes and total coliform bacterias were present.
The TV station, WMBF in Myrtle Beach sent a cooler packed with 4 types of samples collected from different open salad bars and local grocery stores to IEH Laboratories near Seattle for an overnight delivery. The cooler included leafy greens, raw vegetables, cooked meats and mayonnaise-based salads.
The station reported that the lab tested the number of microbes in one gram of food, besides the three major pathogens above, they were able to find that the leafy green samples all had more than a million colony-forming units per gram of microbes.
The CEO of IEH Laboratories, Dr. Mansour Samadpour said that the leafy greens have a wider surface area compared to some other food items. He said that the total coliform numbers were also checked. The ideal number should be fewer than 200 CFU/g of total colifrom. However, one sample of green leafy had 80,000 CFU/g, another 13,000 CFU/g and two other samples had less than 10 CFU.g. According to the TV report, mayonnaise-based salads, all samples tested were at an acceptable range of total coliforms. All meat samples as well, except one that contained 13,000 CFU/g.
Amy Lipman, a video journalist form WMBF said that she was told by a colleague who was in the local grocery store and thought maybe some items need to be tested for safety. After hearing about the test results of the salad bar items, Lipman said some of her coworkers told her they wondered whether it's a good idea to eat from salad bars. However, the results didn't seem to faze her much. "I'm already slightly germophobic as it is," she noted, adding, "I overcook my food."