I have a canvas bag from Barnes and Noble...makes me look like I'm smart. Better than those Gold stars on my forehead.
Yeah, about that....
What’s in your shopping bag? Bacteria
Consider: “Reusable” doesn’t mean “self-cleaning.”
Researchers at the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University queried shoppers headed into grocery stores in California and Arizona, asking them if they wash those reusable bags.
The researchers were likely met with a lot of blank looks. Most shoppers — 97%, in fact — reported that they do not regularly, if ever, wash the bags.
Further, three-fourths acknowledged that they don’t use separate bags for meats and for vegetables, and about a third said they used the bags for, well, all sorts of things (storing snacks, toting books). You can see where this is going.
The researchers tested 84 of the bags for bacteria. They found whopping amounts in all but one bag, and coliform bacteria (suggesting raw-meat or uncooked-food contamination) in half. And yes, the much-feared E. coli was among them — in 12% of the bags.
Here’s the full report, (yes it’s a long title)Assessment of the Potential for Cross Contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags.
For more on food-borne illness check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I go to aldis and carry a denim bag with me. Be creative...make your own...”
Lady in front of me at the store had several rolls of plastic wrap and two sets of plastic storage dishes in addition to a box of plastic sandwich bags and several boxes of food sealed in plastic. I don’t buy plastic wrap and still have some of my mom’s old Tupperware dishes which get a lot of use for storage. The logic of all of this somehow escapes me.
I have a canvas bag from Barnes and Noble...makes me look like I'm smart. Better than those Gold stars on my forehead."
I'm not playing their little cloth bag game. Not only because of bacteria growth in those things, but because the only people I see with cloth bags around here are Obama-voter types.