Forgot to wash spinach - would you still eat the meal?

[dortisa]

I completely forgot to wash the spinach before putting it in the curry. It was a Gousto meal and said on the packet of spinach to wash before use. Still fine to eat, right? My friend thinks not!

I never wash spinach. To be perfectly honest, I do a quick dirt check on most vegetables. If it looks pretty clean, it doesn't get washed...which is 99% of the time.

I may also have shared an apple with my old boy, bit for you, bit for me, not a sniff of washing of the apple or handwashing during the process !
That image is really making me smile 😀

Just Google it

@ThingsinJars That article didn't even go through peer review, and cites things like community gardens in New York & farming in Iran as sources. It's worse than unwashed spinach.

If it was going to give you food poisoning as a PP suggested, washing it is unlikely to fully remove whatever bacteria they imagine would cause the poisoning anyway. Woulda thought that was pretty obvious!

I don't wash any veg and I only give mushrooms a wipe. Surely the cooking kills anything off.

I thought the risk with unwashed spinach was if you eat it raw - it's the potential for e-coli. Same as salad/leafy greens.

I assume that would be killed by the cooking.

I never wash anything ..... veg.... salad... fruit..... I'm still breathing! 👌.....

I never wash any fruit or veg unless it's actually muddy

Yep, no children but have a cat as well
I never get stomach issues, and been around horses since I was 4
I do have the first bite of the apple but only because said horse will chomp the lot in one go!

I didn’t claim it was true. If you can’t/won’t prove your claim it creates a certain degree of scepticism.

I never get stomach issues, and been around horses since I was 4

The microbiologist I mentioned earlier asked if we had any pets, so I said yes, fox poo covered dog, elderly cat and a horse, plus the barn chickens and assorted unseen creatures not caught by barn cat, which to be fair wasn't many as he was a total Ninja. DS started poo-picking in a car seat in a wheelbarrow, moved up to a backpack malarkey, then moved onto wandering falling into through the stuff in his little wellies, no handwashing on site other than a quick spray with the hose if really obviously filthy. Professor of microbiology was like 'yeah, I really wouldn't worry'.
DS has had two sickness bugs in 15 years, one was a particular virulent strain doing the rounds when he was two ( most of playschool went down with it ) and the other was as a result of ingesting sewage infected river water, when he was 12.

I've once accidentally used unwashed spinach and only realised as my food was gritty.

I would not eat any meal prepared from unwashed spinach, no.

You can get sick from toxoplasmosis from unwashed veg.

I don't know what the cause of the toxoplasmosis I personally acquired was but it made me so sick I was misdiagnosed with cancer and had to have the lymph nodes cut out of one side of my neck.

How can you NOT wash spinach? It’s always so sandy and gritty. It’s inedible if you don’t wash it.

Maybe it’s just the organic stuff though? If it’s in a plastic bag from a supermarket it’s probably fine.

Having had Gousto spinach previously I’d
definitely give it a rinse as the grit nearly took me bloody tooth out.

Agree with PP, frozen spinach is amazing.

I agree, I feel like I must live on another planet. Where are people buying unwashed spinach that isn't all gritty and muddy? Or are they growing it in their garden / allotment ... literally baffled...

I have never washed bagged spinach.
The nice big leaf stuff you might get from a farmer's market, or from your own garden.... yes. I give it a rinse.

Of course
I don’t usually wash it

Yes! I’m starting to wonder if anyone on the thread really eats proper spinach… baffling…

Nah you can't get food poisoning from spinach!! How does that work?!

You can. Particularly if it is bagged without being washed in chlorine or exposed to ozone, bacteria can grow on it and form a biofilm that can’t just be washed off.

Number two on this list!
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-that-cause-food-poisoning

Yes of course, especially as you're cooking it anyway
I've never washed spinach

You need to boil something for 5 minutes to kill most bacteria. Spinach generally isn’t cooked like that - so it’s very possible to get parasites from cooked spinach. It’s why when made at home Indian leaf dishes like saag / palak / methi have the life boiled out of them.