Make Your Own: Croutons

Making your own croutons is far cheaper than store-bought ones, you know exactly what's in them, AND it's a great way to use up bread crusts or bread that's gone a bit stale.

Take the bread (preferably sourdough) and thinly spread with butter. Then sprinkle generously with flavourings you like. Dried herbs, garlic salt or grated parmesan work well, but...whatever takes your fancy.

Cut into small squares, about 1.5 cm, spread onto baking tray and toast in the oven until crunchy. (About 10 mins - I normally stick them on the bottom rack while I'm baking something else.)

Allow to cool, then store in air-tight container in pantry.

That's it! Yummy, crunchy croutons for your salad...

Return to The Ingredient Detective website

What's On My Lettuce?

Chlorine, it would seem...

Apparently pre-packaged salad greens are washed in chlorine, and then dried and packaged using Modified-Atmosphere Packaging (MAP), inside which oxygen is decreased and carbon dioxide is increased so that the lettuce appears fresh and perky for longer.

(Have you ever wondered how packaged salads manage to look so fresh and nice on the supermarket shelf, only to get it home, open it up, and within a day it's limp and soggy? Well, there's your answer.)

But, back to the chlorine.

I've written about chlorine on my website, and how it is directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths every year.

According to the book "Not On The Label" by Felicity Lawrence, "The salad leaves are immersed in chlorine which is an oxidising disinfectant. The chlorine level is usually maintained at a minimum of 5omg per litre - twenty times higher than the average swimming pool."

Charming.

The reason is that chlorine is supposed to kill any nasty bugs and bacteria that might be lurking, although salads have been the culprit in several outbreaks of salmonella, e.Coli and listeria, so one might question just how effective this practice is...

I have made several attempts at growing my own lettuce, but somehow it always tastes bitter, and invariably, I end up going back to the supermarket packets of mixed salad leaves with their mild taste.

Packaged lettuce accounts for billions of dollars in annual sales, so it would seem I am not alone here.

But I think I've just figured out why my lettuce has a slightly bitter flavour....Because it's meant to!!

A quote from an industry professional: "As well as disinfecting out the bugs, they disinfect out the taste of fresh leaves, as anyone who has eaten salad straight from the garden knows."

Aha! Lightbulb moment.

I think I'll persevere with growing my own lettuce, after all...

(P.S. In case you're wondering...lettuce is not the only kind of produce to be washed with chlorine. Apparently spinach, apples, tomatoes, melons, sprouts, and carrots are as well, to name just a few...)

Return to The Ingredient Detective website