Everyone’s trying to cut back on using plastic bags. Many supermarkets now only give you bags if you ask for them, and the law is about the change to introduce a 5p charge for using them. We all know it makes sense – you’ve got hundreds of them crammed into a drawer at home that could be better used storing all those kitchen utensils cluttering up the sideboard. And every time you go shopping, you find yourself at the checkout patting down your pockets and realizing you’ve forgotten to bring any bags with you again. You’ll just have to get some more. And stuff them in the drawer to be forgotten again next time.
But should you really be making the effort to remember? It turns out those bags for life you proudly and happily forked out 10p for, could actually be making you ill. They’re a breeding ground for various bacteria, including e-coli, salmonella and listeria. Researchers atGlasgow Caledonian University found almost half the reusable bags they tested were heavily contaminated. And in San Francisco, when retailers were banned from giving their customers plastic bags, there was a subsequent increase in the number of people admitted to hospital for food poisoning.
The risk comes from using the bags for multiple products, which allows the bacteria to spread from one thing to another. Somebody might bring home meat from one trip, and then put loose vegetables into the same bag next time. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommends that raw meat and fish should never be carried in the same bag as ready to eat foods such as fruit and veg, and if you use a reusable bag, make sure you keep separate bags for different food types. Of course, meat that’s fully sealed off the shelf is fine – this applies to meat you’ve bought from the fresh meat counter or butchers.
So now you have to mark your bags and keep them separate as well as just remembering to bring them with you in the first place? Isn’t this all getting a bit much? Maybe I don’t care about the environment that much after all. Well, help is on the way. Several firms are developing a new type of bag for life, with an anti-bacterial coating. It works by preventing the bacteria from reproducing, so that they die off. It’s still a sensible precaution to pack meat and veg separately, but at least if you can’t remember which bag you brought the meat home in last time, this new bag will mean it’s still safe to put your veg in it next time out. Or, of course, use a canvas bag!
At Total Diet Food, all our delivery bags are thoroughly cleaned before sending them out, so you can rest easy knowing that your delicious meals are on their way to you, tasty and bacteria-free.
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