My delusions about pristine organics tainted

Now, I'm not one of those people who insist on everything organic. Personally, I'd rather buy "not necessarily organic" things at the farmer's market, where veggies have traveled 50 miles, than organic avocados from Whole Foods that have come from Chile or Turkey. I also don't care if my eggs come from chickens that don't eat organic feed, and are therefore not organic.

The idea of insisting that my chickens eat organic feed when a large percentage of the world population doesn't have access to food period is a bit odd to me, but that is another blog entry.

However, the one thing I do get organic is salad greens. Not only organic, but triple or quadruple washed as well. I know that it's fallacious to associate "organic"--and even triple washed--with "clean", but for years, I have been buying organic pre-washed salad greens just so I don't have to wash them.

I will pre-cut fruit to bring to work, shell fava beans, peel chestnuts to make chestnut rice, occasionally make vegetable broth and ricotta cheese from scratch, but the one thing I really can't be bothered doing is washing my salad. (Unless I have people over.) I don't mind the washing part so much as the letting-it-dry part.

I don't like soggy wet greens, and I don't want to wait for it to dry or take the time to pat it dry, so this ends up being a big barrier to eating salad greens.

(And yes, I am aware of the existence of salad spinners. Every time I go into a kitchen gadget section, I stare at it and weigh the pros and cons of owning one, but the simple fact is that I do not have room to store it anywhere. Also, I do not believe in buying gadgets that can only do one thing. Not economically efficient. As soon as they invent the salad spinner that also chops and kneads dough, I will buy it, but for now, it's not worth owning one.)

Enter prewashed organic salad greens--well, prior to September 2006. This was my answer to my dilemma and utter lack of interest in washing salad greens.

However, thanks to this recent spinach E-coli scare, my delusions about organic prewashed salad greens being exempt from harmful microbes have now been completely shattered.

I think that I will eventually default back to my original state of not washing organic pre-washed salad greens, but for the past few weeks, this has been my pattern at the farmer's market.

0.5. I go to the farmer's market with list in hand. At the top of the list is always "salad greens".
1. I think "oh, I want some salad." as I linger over the organic (still pre-washed) salad greens at the farmer's market. (usually my very first stop.)
2. I think, "wait. I bought salad greens last week and ended up not having salad, b/c I have this hangup about washing my salad greens."
3. But I'm really craving salad, so this week, I resolve to make an effort to wash them.
4. With this determination, I buy the salad greens and move on to the next stand.
5. I get home.
6. About 5 nights out of the week, it occurs to me to have salad with my dinner. However, I neither want to risk getting E-coli if I don't wash the greens nor deal with washing the greens.
7. I end up not having salad, b/c I'm hungry and want instant gratification. Instead, I opt to spend an hour cooking something else.
8. Somewhere towards the end of the week, I discover a bag of brown wilted salad greens that I bought weeks ago and toss it in the trash.
9. Another week ends. It's time to go to the farmer's market again.

And thus, steps 0.5-9 become a sort of recursive function.

This morning, though, I was finally able to break this vicious cycle and not purchase any salad greens. It took me several visits to the salad place and every ounce of self control to not get them.

Who would've thought that I'd ever feel "virtuous" for not buying salad greens?