Why I am Avoiding Packaged Vegetables

Recently we purchased a bag of mandarin oranges from one of the major grocery stores here. There were a total of about 10 oranges. Unfortunately, the next day when I opened the bag, about half of them already went bad and I had to throw them away. It was pretty disappointing. They cost $5.99 pre-tax, which meant I threw away about $3.00 right there.

This was not the first time when I was disappointed with packaged produce. Two weeks ago, I had to throw away an entire bag of packaged baby-cut carrots that cost $1.69.

These were recent bad experiences with packaged vegetables so I still remember their prices. They got bad not because we kept them too long in the refrigerator, but rather because they already went bad before we bought them in the store. But we could not detect the new development because they were in sealed bags.

Photo by  Lukas Budimaier

Because of these experiences, I have decided to avoid packaged produce as much as I can. There are mainly three reasons. Firstly, I do not want to throw away my money like that. Each package does not cost that much, but imagine you have to throw away two packages a month, that would be about $6. How much money you need to put in your savings account in order to earn that much of interest? The second reason is time. We do grocery shopping about once a week. Every time we would try to get the next week’s supply. That means if we had to throw away one package, we might need to run to the grocery store again.

The third reason is health concerns. Packaged produce seem to be more vulnerable to bacteria. They tend to go bad more quickly than unpackaged ones. We do not want to risk getting salmonella. In the past, certain packaged vegetables and frozen vegetables have been recalled by the manufactures because of similar concerns. As consumers, the best thing we can do is examining what we purchase. Do not eat them if they do not seem “healthy”. It can reduce the chances of eating rotten produce if we avoid buying the packaged ones, instead choose from the unpackaged ones.