Apart from roasted asparagus and brussel sprouts, my preferred vegetables sources are leafy greens – arugula, kale, spinach. I eat a lot of salads so i was somewhat perturbed to read that outbreaks of food poisoning from contaminated greens are more common than I thought. Norovirus, salmonella and E. Coli are the common contaminants and if you have had any one of those bugs, you know it’s not pleasant..

My staple salad green is arugula which I buy as prewashed greens in the plastic clamshells.  The brand I buy usually is labelled triple washed and I figure their washing process is going to be far more effective than me washing fresh lettuce in the sink.

Since I am a salad junkie, and I ensure the product dating on the box  is good for more than a week from when I buy it, I do not expect the arugula to go off. The problem is that in the fridge, water condenses in the  plastic and soon the greens become wet and wilted. I thought I had completely solved this problem when I covered the greens with paper towel and put the clam shell, upside down in the vegetable drawer of the fridge. That certainly delayed the wilting but did not eliminate the problem .   

I decided to experiment. The next time I bought my arugula, I placed the paper over the surface, inverted the clamshell , made sure there was no condensation on the bottom, placed  paper to cover the bottom, reinverted the clamshell to get the arugula back in the container, covered it with paper towel, and stored it upside down  in the draw.  And voila! no more wilting arugula. 

Sure it adds a couple of extra minutes to packing away my groceries but since it saves me throwing away wilted smelly greens, it’s worth it. 

Sometimes I think wistfully of the vegetable garden I gave up when I moved into my condo. I did try patio farming but it wasn’t the same. So it’s the clamshells for me.