Sunday, March 10, 2013

Eating Healthy on the Cheap: Lettuce

Sure.  It's super convenient.  It's just there in a bag ready to dump in a bowl.  It's pre-packaged, pre-washed salad.  Which is really just pre-packaged cut-up lettuce.  Although handy, these suckers are expensive.  Normal shelf price is about $3.69 a bag.  They'll go on sale for $3 or BOGO Free.  Sometimes they go down to $2.50 a bag.  Even on sale, you don't get a great bang for your buck.  Why?  Because in reality, it's a small bag.  Generally, they are anywhere from 5oz - 10oz.  You get about a whole pound if you go strictly iceberg.

Also - not like I'm super conscious about additives and crap in food - but these suckers are constantly testing positive for some sort of bacteria:  E. Coli, listeria, salmonella, cyclospora, cryptosporidium, giardia.  Which are indicators of poor sanitation and fecal contamination.  Ewww.  Poop on my lettuce!

So what does one do?  BUY LETTUCE IN THE FORM IT COMES OUT OF THE GARDEN!  A head of lettuce is significantly cheaper than these bagged beauties of contamination.  It might not seem like it - but when you cut up a head of lettuce (iceberg, romaine, etc.) - you do get a significant amount.  Much, much more than the bags.  And sometimes I think conveniences really "dumb us up".  These bags make us think that cutting/ripping up lettuce is a hard task.  Is it though?  Seriously.  It probably takes a minute or two (if that to cut up a head of lettuce).  Run it through some water to wash it and dry it off.  If you're like me - you add other vegetables to lettuce so you have to wash and cut those too.  I can't just eat lettuce and call it a salad.  So I have the knives and cutting board out anyways when making salad so why not just cut up the lettuce too?

Have kids?  Have them rip it up!  Rugrats LOVE to destroy things.  If you are brave enough, supervise them and have them cut it up.  Yeah, knives are dangerous - but kids need to learn how to use knives properly.  Teach the kids to wash the lettuce.  Not to just "open a bag and enjoy!"





1 comment:

Shinny said...

I have a big plastic knife, not sure what it was originally for, from Pampered Chef. It works great for cutting up lettuce and if you aren't eating it all up in a day or two this plastic knife helps stop it from browing as quickly. Love your blog. Keep up the good work.