Why, in most supermarket I’ve visited in the United States, are the fresh green vegetables all drenched in water at regular intervals?
I’ve never seen this anywhere else.
So the veggies don’t get all dried out and shrivelly. It keeps them perky and gives them a nice shine.
StG
I think this is a relatively recent practice. I don’t remember seeing veggies being sprayed 20 years ago; could be mistaken.
I am too cynical to think it helps the produce in any way. I think it is to make it look more appetizing, as though it were drenched in the morning dew. :rolleyes:
I personally hate having to shake the water out of my lettuce when I pick it up to buy it. And wet produce has a *shorter * life once you take it home and refrigerate it in a plastic bag, not longer.
A lot of fresh items have a wax coating, the water make them look really fresh when it beads up of them.
My local supermarket does this. I don’t like it much. It means that the top layer of everything is soggy and you have to dig down to find the dry fruit and vegetables.
I could have sworn that I’ve seen them do that Quinnsworth – am I wrong? Guess I must be. Definitely not Dunne’s, that’s for sure.
Was at a grocery store that had a sprinkler system, and little hidden speakers. Just before the water came on, you’d hear a little rumble of thunder, and that was your cue to not get wet. Cute!
My wife works in produce, and some things just generally need moisture to last longer in the cold-case. Before she goes home at night, she’ll dole out scoops of ice to the Broccoli, Swiss chard, watercress, etc.
One grocery store where I used to shop played “Singin’ in the Rain” when the sprinkler system was about to activate.
I thought it was to increase the weight of the item (and the cost), not just the water on the item, but the water in the produce that would normally be lost to transpiration if the air was dry.
My first employment, in 1953, was in a supermarket and I got experience/training in most of its departments, including the produce dept. They routinely sprayed the items, for all of the reasons stated by StGermain. I suspect (though I was never told) that kanicbird’s suggestion might also apply, to increase the weight of items sold by the pound. I changed careers after college.
You buy water at the cost of vegetables.
Even if you say that a head of lettuce still holds a tablespoon of water (generous) at checkout, that works out to about four-tenths of an ounce of extra weight.
Lettuce, in my experience, is normally sold by the head and not by the pound. So let’s come up with some other veggie that can hold a lot of water on its surface and is usually sold by weight so we can see how much the weight of a few drops of water adds to the cost of the produce.
I like it; keeps everything crisp and appealing.
In most of the supermarkets I visit, “drenched” is a trifle strong - the veggies are “misted”.
They didn’t have automatic sprayers that played “Sining in the Rain” but they sure did have hoses with spray nozzles – and a good deal more than 20 years ago. When I was a kid, I used to get yelled at regularly at the A&P when I sprayed the floor with them – 45 years ago.
Most of the grocery stores that I’ve been in here in Canada do it as well. One of them even adds rain sounds to it. Prior to the misting there is the sound of thunder.
I worked produce in a grocery in the late 70’s. We had to mist the leafy vegetables at intervals to prevent the classic dried out wilted leaves. After a couple days without misting they would be too nasty to eat, and we would have never sold them. I probably have to burst your bubble on the idea the vegetables are fresh. A common period for them to be stored in the cooler in a waxed box is one to two months. The only stuff that is sold quicker are bananas because refrigerated ones turn black. Wax coated vegetables and plastic bagged ones don’t have to be misted because the barrier drastically slows down the moisture loss. Most fruit shouldn’t be misted, because the water will make it degrade faster.
Some science for and against the practice. Benefits if done right, and not suite to all produce:
http://www.aginfo.psu.edu/News/october99/misty.html
Penn State College of Agriculture
Produce that needs to be misted regularly: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery, sweet corn, eggplant, collard and kale greens, leeks, radishes, turnips and limes. “Most of these fruits and vegetables have thick and waxy skin or leaves, and heavy moisture won’t affect them as much,” Ferretti says.
–Produce that should be misted lightly: asparagus, beets, bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, endive, all lettuces, green onions, snap beans, spinach, summer squash and zucchini.
“Light misting means exactly that,” Ferretti says. “Too much moisture really can cause storage problems with this group.”
Ferretti says some produce must be kept dry. He says bulb onions, garlic, chili peppers and winter squash never should be misted.
Here they don’t do it yet we never really have rotten produce on the shelves.
We don’t here, either.
But that’s because they hire employees who remove the rotten produce.
Around here the soak all the veggies, especially the lettuce. I brinig them home, shake theem off & line em up inverted to drain for a few hours before refrigerating. The lettuces still start to wet-rot within 3 -5 days.
I hate soaked (not misted) veggies.
I asked some neighbors about it. They said would never buy a non-sodden lettuce; it wouldn’t look fresh to them. F***ing morons.
As others have said, this isn’t a new idea. As a kid n SoCal back in the early 1960s I got yelled at for spraying the hose in the produce department. The difference was the produce guy did it lightly once an hour. Now the timer does it heavily every 3 minutes.
Stick a paper towel in the bag with the lettuce. It will absorb the extra moisture - I get an additional week on my lettuces and even my bagged pre-cut salad mix when I remember to do that.