Is it just me? Raw meat at the grocery store

[PollyannaMom]

The cashiers at my grocery store always ask, but I usually decline - because I’ve already put the packaged meat in an extra plastic bag in the meat department. So my only remaining concern is that the now double-wrapped meat and my other cold items go in my insulated reusable bag before they’re put in the hot car.

And though I think the way the cashier spoke to the OP was rude, I really do sympathize with their position. Every customer will have a different “highest concern” (whether that’s cross-contamination or eliminating plastics or easy of putting things away...) and it can’t be easy to guess.

 

[_19disnA]

Every grocery store I have ever shopped at always bags the meat separate from other items. Things like household cleaning products also separate from any food items. Maybe at a tiny local store they don't train their employees as well.

 

[NYCgrrl]

The cashiers at my grocery store always ask, but I usually decline - because I’ve already put the packaged meat in an extra plastic bag in the meat department.

So my only remaining concern is that the now double-wrapped meat and my other cold items go in my insulated reusable bag before they’re put in the hot car.

Just back from the supermarket. Thank you for reminding me to put the ice cream away. It was on sale and I’d already forgotten that I bought it !

@Karin1984 sorry I didn’t see any photos of ill wrapped meat online. I suppose that’s a good thing.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

If I'm bagging myself I always put meat separate, but I wouldn't say anything if the store employee didn't as it doesn't really bother me that much. I would be more concerned about chemicals/cleaning products being bagged with food as that is NOT ok.

 

[MillauFr]

I think posters here should read the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The conditions in those plants today isn't much better than back then

 

[Pea-n-Me]

A bigger concern should be that many produce farms irrigate their crops with contaminated water. That is how most of the e-coli outbreaks that hit Chipotle happened.

It is a concurrent concern, not a bigger one, necessarily.

EColi is an adulterant in food, however it gets there.

With meat, it is cooked off, if cooked properly. With a steak, it is on the outer edges and that gets cooked. With ground beef, germs are ground deep into the meat, so when touched or undercooked, it can still be there, even after cooking. But when handling, a drop of blood on hands or on a counter can contain enough bacterial to cause an illness. Once in the body, they grow, and cause havoc in the bowels and kidneys for a week or so. In many outbreaks, people can die, but many are hospitalized and can have lifelong health problems as a result of the infection.

With cold foods like at Chipotle, there is no kill step of cooking. So no chance of getting killed off. Things like sprouts or other raw vegetables are exposed to EColi from water runoff, as you said. (And at Chipotle, salmonella and norovirus - from workers’ hands - were also part of their problem.)

So however you get it, it’s a problem. Other ways are in petting zoos, raw milk (unpasteurized), raw cookie dough, leafy greens and some others. Currently there is an outbreak in yogurt in the Seattle area.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Okay, I am lost here. How can it be that in the US meat is so poorly packaged that this is a concern? I need visuals. Can someone post pictures where it is clearly visible how the packaging looks in the US?
Here in NL, the meat doesn't leak out of the packaging, when bought in supermarkets.

It’s not “all US meat”. Meat can be poorly packaged anywhere. It probably depends where you shop, how their meat comes in, and how it’s packaged. Some stores today don’t have a butcher shop on site, and their meats all come in tightly sealed from an outside vendor. Some stores and supermarkets that have a butcher shop still use old-style packaging, with a tray, an absorbent pad, and plastic topping sealed with a heat sealer. Some places still wrap meats in paper or a combination of plastic and paper. Some use containers. Whichever way - if meat is bloody, it can leak out. It’s not uncommon in the stores I shop in that the bottom of a tray of meat is leaking. It’s gross. People who work in the departments are also touching lots and lots of meat and meat packages. Even if they wear gloves, there can be cross contamination. The other day I bought meat and it was nice, they had large bags there for the meat (like the ones in produce but twice as big) as well as hand sanitizer that actually worked.

 

[Weedy]

As the cashier said she deals with all types. I try and not use any plastic bags at all. I use reusable shopping bags. When they ask if I want my meat/chicken wrapped in plastic I tell them no.
I wash my reusable bags often

 

[NannyBeBe]

The store I go to provides plastic bags and I wrap any meat that I buy and tie a knot in the bag. If the store did not provide bags, I would buy them online and take them with me to the store.