How the hell did they do that? - Salad in a bag technology question

Factual Questions
1

I got one of those “Caesar Salad in a Bag” things from the supermarket last Saturday. The product is by Dole and contains (non-iceberg) leaf lettuce, a bad of croutons, some Caesar dressing and a liitle bag of parmesan cheese for about $ 3.29.

So, the next day I go to make the salad and it is nowhere to be found. I look in the SUV cargo hold, the yard (in case I dropped it), but nothing turns up. A real mystery because I could swear I brought it in. Oh well I figure, it’s probably mush by now anyway if it’s anywhere but the fridge.

So… fast forward to Monday night. I am getting an onion out of the lower cupboard and there the bag o’ salad is, next to the potatoes. I get ready to throw out what must be wilted goop by now, but I am stunned (literally) when I see that the salad leaves appear fresh and hardy. WTH? Amazed I pop it in the fridge and just finished eating it tonight, two days later. Detected just a touch of wiltiness in some leaves but overall was crispy, yummy leafy goodness.

Now… the question. How the hell did they do this? If you leave a normal lettuce leaf out on the kitchen counter it will wilt considerably in a few hours. How did the lettuce processing, bag and packaging technology come together to keep this franken lettuce fresh though 3 days of being a dark (but coolish) room temperature potato cupboard and 2 days in the fridge?

Still weirded out by this.

2

So weirded out you forgot to post this in GQ.

3

Ummm nooo… I’ve had food related stuff moved out of GQ before into CS by arrogant, goat felching, jack booted Nazi mods so I decided to put it here first this time.

4

OK. It just looked like a very specific and non opinion based question that’s all.

5

Your legendary Lobsangian powers of persuasion have convinced me! I’ll ask one of the self effacing, animal loving, sensibly shoed, mensch mods of this forum to move it.

6

Now I’m curious. What was in that salad to leave Astro so angry?

7

Angry? *** :mad: ANGRY!!! :mad: *** …umm no just curious about how they did the fresh salad thing :confused:

8

My WAG is the bag is filled with some sort of “controlled atmosphere” type of gas. Here’s a link briefly explaining the concept. Basically a low oxygen environment slows down spoilage. The sight talks about large installaitons (shipping containers and coolstores) but I’d imagine the same principle could work on a small scale.

Here in NZ they use it for apples and other fruit, which means the apples you get late in the season aren’t as floury as they used to be in the old days.

Better living through technology!