5. The Salad Bars Are a Germ Buffet
Given all the horror stories that have taken place at salad bars in restaurants across the country, it should come as no surprise that salad bars in grocery stores are disease-ridden places. Still, shoppers buy many of their items in that section each week. Bacteria like e-coli and salmonella are common inhabitants of these high-traffic areas.
6. Dangerous Meat
Unfortunately, even packaged food has its share of risks. In 2006, Dateline reporters used a hidden camera and found meat products that were weeks old and still on the shelves. They even saw fruit flies nesting on the produce. In one chain of Asian stores in Houston, rats had chewed through packaged products, leaving droppings behind.
7. Contaminated Fruit
You’ve probably heard it before, but you should always wash your fruits and vegetables after you buy them because they may be covered in pesticides. Peaches alone may have a combination of up to fifty-three pesticides on them, while apples (supposedly nature’s cure-all) have as many as fifty different pesticides. There are even pesticides in your fruit drinks.
8. Don’t Trust Expiration Dates
We’ve written about this before but it bares repeating. Eggs and other perishables may be good weeks after their expiration dates. This is definitely good news for many shoppers out there. But it’s the sell-by date that matters. If you buy meat in a store with a sell-by date three or four days away, be careful, the meat may stay good for less time in your refrigerator than the heavy duty refrigerators used in super markets.
9. The Dangers of Imported Foods
Approximately 15 percent of all food sold in America is imported. Yet, as of 2007, less than 2 percent of that food was properly inspected for health hazards by the government. We’ll do the math for you here: that means a lot of your food goes unchecked. If you’ve got 10 items in your shopping cart, chances are at least one of them is suspect.
10. Food Gets Sliced Into Pieces and So Does Your Wallet
According to some estimates, you may pay twice as much for meats that are cut up into pieces compared to buying it unprepared. For that much of a price difference, you might as well just buy yourself two full chickens and eat with your hands, barbarian style.
11. Nothing Is Exactly What It Claims to Be
Baked Goods may not really be that fresh. Whole wheat bread may not be entirely made of whole wheat. And bargain items aren’t so much of a bargain. Read product boxes carefully for ingredients, learn to feel fruits and baked goods for freshness and do price comparisons online before you are fooled into buying a crate of so-called bargain goods. Also be sure to look at unit prices (the cost per value), which better represent the real prices of items.
