You may think you’re choosing the healthy option every time you pick up a salad for lunch but could you actually be putting yourself at risk?

The Irish Independent reports that a food expert has said that “ready-to-eat” salad is more dangerous than beefburgers, due to a spate of infections linked to bacteria in the food.

Professor Hugh Pennington, a noted food expert, has said that certain types of bacteria found in pre-cut salad bags can be impossible to kill. This means that the chances of a person developing a Cryptosporidium infection after consuming the food are relatively higher.

Professor Pennington’s claim follows an investifatin into an outbreak of salad-linked Cryptosporidium infections that impacted the lives of 300 people in England and Scotland last year.

As part of the investigation, the Health Protection Agency carried out tests on various types of pre-cut salad vegetables and a significant link was found between infection and pre-cut mixed salad leaves, the type usually found in bags in supermarkets.

Pre-packaged salads can contain mass amounts of bacteria

“Together these findings suggest that one or more types of salad vegetables could have been contaminated,” said the Health Protection Agency.

Professor Pennington said that there had also been several cases of the infection in the USA where they are “very worried” about “washed and ready-to-eat” salad that comes in bags.

“It is generally safer to eat a burger than the salad that goes with it. Despite the recent horsemeat and other scandals, the meat can be traced and through a rigorous process that checks for its quality etc,” said Professor Pennington.

“That does not exist to the same rigour for salad. You can only make vegetables safe by cooking and you can’t obviously do that with salad... These bugs are very good at clining on to salad and the risk from Cryptosporidium, Salmonella and Listeria is very real. I would advise people to thoroughly wash salad even when it says it has been washed and is ready to eat,” he added.

With salad season fast approaching, we’ll definitely be taking Professor Pennington’s advice and giving all of our greens a good scrub. Health experts are advising the public to buy loose salad vegetables wherever possible and to make sure everything has been cleaned before they eat it.