Did you know that a Young Readers Edition of The Omnivore's Dilemma was released last fall? It's aimed at grades seven and up, and is a shortened version of the original. A 13 year old reviews it at Civil Eats. I recently bought a copy for my niece.
February 2010 Archives
Civil Eats reports that in the March 2010 issue of Consumer Reports, "tests of packaged leafy greens found bacteria that are common indicators of poor sanitation and fecal contamination, in some cases, at rather high levels." Organic greens fared no better than conventionally grown.
Recommendations are (if you are going to buy packaged salad) that
Until packaged salad becomes cleaner, consumers’ best line of defense involves following these procedures in stores and kitchens: (1) Buy packages far from their use-by date. (2) Wash the greens even if the packages say “prewashed” or “triplewashed.” Rinsing won’t remove all bacteria but may remove residual soil. (3) Prevent cross contamination of greens by keeping them away from raw meat and poultry.
I usually try to avoid packaged salad greens since they are primarily grown in California and must travel many miles to our stores, and in the past I've had a lot of success growing cool season greens here. This year I've reneged a little on that since our garden is in distress.
In last week's Press-Register column, Bill Finch continued his series on predicting the effects of cold weather in the garden
I'm happy to say that he writes
If I've learned anything from this winter, it's that I've been too conservative in promoting winter vegetable gardening, and perhaps not loud enough in encouraging the use of simple coverings during the coldest nights.
