lettuce refrigerate why

[allen]

Most things with leaves aren't easily infected by bacteria. I guess for the reasons that they normally live outside as plants.

Which brings me to my storey after I just came back from Costco. I have a lot of Romaine letuce 6 packs I just washed to rid it of the bugs. I washed & rinsed pulled leaves in the sink and put in a bucket to dry. Bucket won't fit in the frigerator but wifey is all up and mad about it. Wifey wants me to back the lettuce & then fill the frigerator with it. I think it will do just fine at the 70 degrees we keep the house at.

Why does letuce need to be in a frigerator anyway?

It might not be as crisp after days in the kitchen. But do bacteria really attack lettuce in a week or two?

[Thomas]

It is the evaporation. If you ever have limp celery, toss it in a bowl of icewater.

[allen]

That makes the most sense because nothing is going to make it decay in the short term (about a week) so it must be just that it looks & feels limpy when it is not kept cold and moist in the original package in the frigerator. Unless the ecoli is there already and if it is, I'm a goner.

It's not going in the frigerator because I'm not taking the time to individually repack a few of those six packs when I don't need to.

One thing I can do is put some water at the bottom of the bucket. And a saran wrap over the top. Maybe with a fizzy soda inside to add the carbon dioxide keeper. Also maybe vinnegar instead of water as one news paper storey said. But I'm not doing that paper towel trick in the news papers below. And it's not near fruits and veggies that release the ethylene gas neither. And the news storeys say paper towels absorb the moisture better.

That should keep it moist. But I can't keep it cold.

But I'm not worried about decay unless there are good reasons to.

Haven't found any yet but there is contridicting claims in here.

The iceywater trick was in here as you says.

But many other news storeys said to keep it dry with a zip back and paper towel.

[Retirednoguilt]

Yes they do. And so does mold. Refrigeration slows the growth of most bacteria and molds. Ever start using a head of lettuce and find a brown slime inside? What do you think caused that?

[knuttle]

Agree with RetiredNoGuilt for sure! It's not that it will get infected. It's that if it's /already/ infected, the bacteria "can" multiply. You won't know if it's already infected (listeria, e. coli, whatever).

[micky]

Did you find any bugs? I try not to eat bugs, but I don't know how much effort I should put into that.

That's why they call the bottom drawers teh "crisper". iirc. At least they used to. If they stopped, why did they stop calling it that. No more advertising benefit?