Bagged Salad
Vegetable
Bagged salad is pre-cut mixed leaves — lettuce, rocket, spinach, chard — washed and sealed in a modified-atmosphere bag. The leaves are a great source of folate; in pregnancy the advice is simply to rinse them again and eat them fresh.
Why it's good in pregnancy
A handful of mixed leaves gives folate for your baby's neural tube, vitamin C that helps you absorb iron from the same meal, vitamin A from the darker leaves and fibre that keeps pregnancy constipation at bay. Having a bag ready makes it easy to add greens to lunch every day.
Key nutrients
Serving ideas
Safety
Pre-cut leaves have a large cut surface and sit in a sealed bag for days, which gives listeria, salmonella and E. coli room to grow if any contamination slipped through washing — bagged salads have been linked to several outbreaks, including listeria. The NHS advises washing all salad, including bags labelled ready washed, and the risk rises as the bag ages or warms up. A rinse under cold running water and a spin, eaten on the day you open the bag, brings the risk right down. Pre-dressed salads from a deli counter or buffet are harder to judge and are better skipped.
Wash bagged salad leaves again, even if labelled ready washed.Keep it chilled, eat within the use-by date and discard slimy leaves.Pre-dressed salads from a deli or buffet are better avoided.Choose the bag with the longest date from the back of the chiller, get it home cold and keep it at 5°C (41°F) or below. Rinse the leaves in cold running water, dry them in a spinner or on a clean tea towel, and eat them straight away — an open bag should not sit for more than a day. Throw out any bag with wet, brown or slimy leaves or a strong smell, even within date. Wash your hands and chopping board before and after, especially if raw meat was prepared nearby.