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 will usually 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, at your neighborhood farmer's market, the fact that the produce is generally picked right before you get it and so 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.
While those GreenBags that are specially made to prolong the life of veggies 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 if you want to stay safe.
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. Should be simple common sense, yet I see people do this kind of thing all the time. If you are buying at a farmer's market, take you own bags, especially if the vendor is reusing plastic bags to pack produce into. While it seems like a very "green" recycling thing to do, it is actually setting up a situation that can have pretty negative consequences.
So, after all that info about plastic storage, there is a flip side. I am a strong steward of the environment and really don't want to encourage anyone to use plastic, although the reality of our society is that plastic bags are everywhere and many people use them. A great alternative to using plastic storage bags are 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. There is 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. If you want to use this kind of bag, you can order them online. Of course, you could make your own, but you need to do a little research about the type of fabric, whether or not the fabric has been chemically treated, etc...so actually, it is probably easier to buy them.
Farmer's Market versus Supermarket
The produce you get at the farmer's market can be many times cleaner than what you purchase at the supermarket or produce stand, simply because there have been fewer opportunities for contamination to occur. Most small farmers who sell their produce at farmer's markets pick it, pack it and bring it to market in the same container it was picked into, so 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 with an acceptable disinfectant after each use (we used 30% acetic acid grain distilled vinegar). But that doesn't mean it is without risk. Once those veggies get to the market and go on display, you have any number of people handling them just trying to pick out their purchases.
(And before I move any further with this section, I have to inject a personal comment. I have been a vendor at farmer's markets all over this area for the last 10 years and one of my biggest peeves are parents who hand their tiny children unwashed fruits and vegetables to eat while walking the market. I imagine that these parents are trying to let their kids experience the joys of a fresh strawberry or off the tree apple but what they are doing is handing their kids the potential for a really bad tummy ache or worse. Even organic foods are grown in dirt and need to be washed before consumption. )Wiping that apple on your shirt before you hand it to your tot really doesn't do much to remove potential contamination.
Keep in mind that hardly anything you get at a farmer's market (produce) will have been washed nor is it ready to eat. At our farm, as well as many small farms, we do hydrocool some of our field crops. This process 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. But not every farm does that. You should always practice safe food handling when using any locally grown organic produce.
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. Some farmer's markets now require that all vendors take a food safety certification course to participate, so if you are concerned about that, simply ask.
To find information on the safe handling of meats, visit MeatSafety.org
