# old lettuce - is it ok to eat?



## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

old lettuce
I read once, way back, that lettuce shouldn;t be kept too long in the fridge or it would develop something toxic - for some reason formaldehyde comes to mind (is that possible?)
i wondered if anyone ever heard this. I shop once a week, and sometimes the lettuce is pretty good after a week, if i keep it in a paper bag inside a half open plastic bag -i'm talking mainly about romaine lettuce. I eat it only if it;s still crisp and not smelly or mooshy or anything. No mold.


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## suzanne (May 26, 2001)

Really? Wow, we should be long dead then, or at least fully embalmed. :lol:

We keep our lettuces wrapped in paper towels within loose plastic bags, in a crisper bin in the fridge. Romaine keeps especially well, as long as it's dry and we change the towels if they get wet from condensation. Although that doesn't often happen with dryish romaine -- more often with other types of lettuce that have been sprayed with water in the store to keep them looking fresh. (All it does is make them wet, and more prone to rotting, imo.  )


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

I hate to waste any produce. Romaine keeps well and if I'm in doubt at all I cook it. Not too long ago I made a grilled ceasar salad by cutting the romain in half lengthwise and placing each half face down on a hot grill for a couple of minutes. Then dress like a regular ceasar salad and eat with fork and knife. Wouldn't that kill bacteria?


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## chefdrizzle (Dec 23, 2007)

well you really are only killing the bacteria on the surface of the romaine you put on the grill.. that heat isnt going to permeate through the rest of it... we used to run a grilled romaine salad as well at my last restaurant.. it was delicious with a roasted shallot dressing..


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

Care to share the roasted shallot dressing recipe?


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

ok, so that's why people say i'm so "well-preserved"???

All it does, in my opinion, is add quite a bit of weight so that when you go and pay you are paying up to double for your lettuce!!!

Koukovagia, the thing i read was about a chemical, not bacteria. So once the chemical is produced by the bacteria, it doesn;t matter if you kill it, a little like rotten meat. 

Mind you, i find this information to be more like a journalistic hyped up story to sell papers or something, i don;t know, don;t remember where i read it but in more than one place.


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## mont86 (Jan 24, 2009)

I have eaten some pretty crappy lettuce before and am still alive.


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## kokopuffs (Aug 4, 2000)

I overheard a manager at Denny's Restaurant stating it's their policy to pour bleach onto lettuce leaves in order to preserve the color.


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