01-21-2013 STAR-K Discusses Checking Leafy Herbs & Romaine Lettuce For Insects

um let's move on to Leafy herbs Dill parsley cilantro spinach Mason spring mix Etc all those types of things see what we have here parsley right so parsley process for all the green herbs is generally the same thing pre-wash it that's always the best shot you have this is not pre-wash but we're going to pretend that it is then you take it agitated in water helps to use a colander sometimes on this and then same idea check the water you see what's in the water or pour through the FL puff and check the through cloth um and that process the same for all the different types of hery vegetables again and if any of these things you find any bugs in the water wash it again and then repeat the check in process again this is not a washing process this is a checking process take it to the sink wash it preferably in soap palala whatever you want to wash it in and then repeat the checking process again you say preash just um you could pre-wash whatever you want we prefer soap because it would give you the best shot of making a p but it's not it's not required there's no basis that moving on to the next thing and again we're just going in alphabetical order um mushrooms always there was a tone of mushrooms a while ago um the problem everyone was saying was mus that is found in the fan area underneath the mushrooms over here um but we have found through extensive research that they're not M so all do is really just rinse them off over there that's all you have to do no further checking is required any type of mushroom romainia okay that's everyone's [Music] favorite um Roman Hearts generally speaking are a little bit cleaner but you'll find just as many insects the only difference between a Roman heart and a full head is whether they take off the ad leaves or not but you'll find a know bugs all the way through to the inside now a very interesting tidbit on this is that different companies different ways of cutting the lettuce a lettuce knife looks more or less like a kitchen knife but it's just thin at the bottom and fat at the end and they use it to just chop the head out of the ground one of the companies that we deal with has a double-sided knife which is I'm going to finish up really soon has a double-sided knife which is they use the bottom of the knife to cut the lettuce out of the ground and the top part of the knife which is a separate knife to chop off the other leaves and interesting enough it makes a big difference if you're using the same knife you just dug into the ground to chop the lettuce out where many times insects are found to cut the outside leaves off you're going to leave plenty of dirt residue and insects on the OU out part of the leaf so this company um their lettuce generally is cleaner but we still finding plenty of bugs but a lot of times just small things like that could make a big difference but um generally on whether it's whole heads rain or the hearts either way you're going to be finding lettuce now there's three ways to do lettuce the same really lettuce can be done the same way as you do anything else which [Music] is um take the leaves you can put in those same checking water the same water agitate it agitate the leaves in the water and then check the water or take the water and pour it through a f okay now sorry I didn't look look afterward just because we don't have time that's that was why we use the videos to show you but um yeah the other way to do the other way to do lettuce the classic way to do lettuce is put the lettuce on a light box like the video up the light sunlight or something like that um now this is very effective obviously I personally do not like it and nether to do a lot of the other lettuce companies the reason is very simple it takes a lot of patience to check lettuce leaf by leaf on a light box um you know these bugs are small even if you get to know what you're looking for you really have to you really have to spend time looking at make sure you get all the crevices Etc is a th but um you know that's one but there could be many more that I'm missing right so that's why generally speaking we recommend the m just to do it in the water it's much more surf far much more effective way of checking the lettuce and it's much faster now let's talk about clothed with lettuce is like Iceberg and cabbage there a lot of very fundamental differences between iceberg lettuce and cabbage one is is that many of us don't like iceberg lettuce so much because doesn't taste as good and the bugs know that too and seriously speaking it's not as nutritious for they're not as attracted to it however they are still found now the way iceberg lettuce grows is it starts off a little bit open like this and then closes next layer grows and closes over that next layer grows and closes over that so if there are any bugs there they can get all the way to the inside just as much as they can be in the OU leaves but the companies require have contracts with the pest control companies they know this fact about iceberg lettuce in fact I got this information from them I saw myself in the fields they have to spray the iceberg lettuce immediately as soon as it starts coming out of the ground to get it at that stage before the first loose starts closing because otherwise they get bugs in there and then the whole the whole Lett is filled you know it's going to become infested in fact if they don't spray it precisely at that time and the company decides to reject the whole field because there's too many insects the pess control oper has to pay the company for the field and they're insured against this exact situation um but what we require Che we require checking the entire head we don't just we don't do any partial heads first three layers anything you have to do the entire head um if you're doing an entire case of iceberg lettuce because of the Midas of iceberg lettuce Weir if it was sprayed properly you're not going to have insects in general so the way we do this and this is again this is not for home this is really only done in restaurants we doneal with cases of iceberg lettuce they can take three heads of iceberg lettuce from the case check the entire head and if there's no insects found in those three entire heads and the rest of that case can be used each case has to be checked separately and the same thing applies for cabbage green or purple