Nancy wrote:

> I just watched Sara Moulton on Good Morning America talking
> about washing produce. She said, Don't wash the triple washed
> spinach/whatever. That's because if you wash it in your sink you
> might contaminate it. I'm thinking ... huh? Then she talks about,
> if you wash produce, better to wash it in a bowl. Well, DUH.
>
> Is this a common thing, do people put their food directly on the sink
> surface when they are washing it? Yuck! Personally, I just wash it
> under running water and put it into a waiting bowl next to the sink.
>
> I'm amazed that people would be washing, say, chicken or just dirty
> dishes in their sink, then plopping produce right down on the same
> surface. Like, the sink is clean just by virtue of being a sink?
>
> I'm sure no one here would do that.

When I get a head of lettuce, I do the Alton Brown trick of separating the
leaves, washing them, then wrapping them in paper towels, stuffing them into
ziploc bags, and extracting as much air as possible before refrigerating
them. It keeps the lettuce a LOT fresher than any other means I've found.
For the step where I wash the leaves, I do use the sink, but I scour and
rinse it very well first. I also clean the sink prior to washing collard
greens, kale, chard, or other leafy greens in it, but at least those greens
are going to get cooked, so even if salmonella *was* lurking there, it'd be
killed by the cooking process.

Bob