Triple washed? Um… maybe quadruple will do it.

The Consumers Union tested 208 bagged lettuce samples from 16 brands and found 39% of them exceeded acceptable levels of coliform bacteria — that’s fecal matter to you and me. CU senior scientist Dr Michael Hansen pointed out: “Although these ‘indicator’ bacteria generally do not make healthy people sick, the tests show not enough is being done to assure the safety or cleanliness of leafy greens.” Not enough is a bit of an understatement considering there aren’t currently any federal standards for indicator bacteria in leafy greens.

Can you say “yuck”? I can, and since even the triple washed lettuces scored poorly in the testing, you can bet I’ll be washing my bagged lettuce thoroughly from now on — or maybe just go back to buying heads of lettuce. Since I’m washing the the leafy green stuff anyway, I might as well save some money.