A lively salad

[GrannieAnnie]

I'm so embarrassed. Last night I took a salad to a party prepared with our loose leaf frilly lettuce, each leaf  carefully washed under running water and shaken off, and a slug/snail crawled across a friend's plate who was eating her salad right beside me, its little antennae sticking up proudly. She laughed it off, had been raised on a farm, but I was mortified. I don't know how it survived the washing >:(   Any suggestions? besides not taking my salad out in public ever again?

[GrannieAnnie]

[Barnowl]

Add some salt to the water you wash the salad in?

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

it shows you're not using pesticides  :D

[OllieC]

I soak mine for an hour or so - the slugs genrally walk up to the top... I'd rather eat the odd slug than a bit of metaldehyde. Actually, that's not true, terrible really.

[big J]

just tell her she got the organic salad with free range slugs  :-X

[Barnowl]

Forgotten to mention rinse off with unsalted water - got to watch those arteries (well I  have to).

[GrannieAnnie]

just tell her she got the organic salad with free range slugs  :-X

hahahahaha!  I'll tell her that!  And the salt soaking sounds like a good idea and never crossed my mind. Thank you! :D

[Crystalmoon]

I use a plastic salad spinner, cheap contraption from Wilkinson, seems to fling nasties to the sides & off the salad leaves  ;D

[Suzanne]

In our house, if salad doesn't come with wildlife its authenticity is challenged.  ;D

[antipodes]

in France people sometimes wash lettuce in water with vinegar added, they say it kills beasties like aphids?
I have found a slug in my salad before though, you just pick them out  ;D

[Mrs Ava]

My father in law scoffed chard once and I saw the little slug go into his mouth in it and he didn't notice.  EEK!  Mark had a shield bug in his lottie lettuce so now I shred or seperate the leaves and fling them in the washing up bowl filled with cold water and leave them for a bit first, as said before, most of the creepies will crawl or float to the surface.  I think the worse I ever did was served some purple sprouting broc which was infested with white fly....as people started eating and I poured the water away, I wondered what all of the grime was in the cooking water....then I realised!!!!!  Oh the joy of being chemical free.