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.
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| 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.
