One thing I have found is that a study isn’t just a study. Many times study’s can be sponsored by specific industries who have a vested interest in what a study finds. Since I wash my canvas bags with other sturdy fabrics it isn’t as impactful as if I washed them alone. They dry on a line and sunshine is a great disinfectant
I love my clothesline! It saves so much money in the summer. It's cold today, but windy as heck. I think I'll wash and hang a load and see how well cold wind dries the clothes. REDROSE EXPERIMENT TIME!!
I can't address the issue of using plastic sacks for baking bread because I haven't baked bread in decades. (And I rarely cook either.) What is interesting to me is that everything I buy at the grocery store comes wrapped in plastic, but now in Greeley, Colorado we can't use plastic sacks at the check out unless they charge us $0.10 a piece. So, my stove is dusty and has cobwebs and that's just the way I prefer it to stay. HOWEVER, I do like to sew. I go to the local Goodwill when they have a 99 cent jean sale and I make reusable tote bags out of jeans. You turn the jeans inside out and cut just beyond the pockets, then sew a seam across the bottom. (The bigger the jeans the better. ). I bought a pair of jeans once that had a 54-inch waist. You can cut strips of fabric from the leftover legs to make straps. If you center the seams of the legs in the middle of your strips of fabric, the seams will reinforce the straps. These tote bags make great book bags from the library, grocery sacks from Walmart and great big duffle bags for when you go to the gym. You can line the totes with vinyl tablecloth material for hauling wet swimsuits and towels. And the totes can be decorated around the waistband, straps, and the watch pockets with contrasting or matching fabric. And they are all washable in the hottest water! (And dryer) and are practically indestructible. A lot of those bags that you purchase for carrying your groceries are mostly paper/cotton and when you try to wash them they disintegrate. There is a church here where the women are required to wear long skirts. Once a year they have a big garage sale and you can buy a whole sack of those long denim skirts for $3. And it is really easy to make tote bags out of those long denim skirts. Just one seam across the bottom and a couple of straps and you're in business! Well, that's probably way more than you ever wanted to know about tote bags made out of jeans.😂
If you are educated to interpret research, you can easily separate the wheat from the chaff. Sponsored research is not always skewed, and the opposite is also true, independent research is not always of good quality. So saying everything is bought and paid for, doesn't make you edgy. It makes you sound deeply uneducated. Nuance is reserved for the higher minds. Rose is one of them.
Years ago we were stationed in Germany where reusable bags were used daily. Plastic was hard to find. I’ve read these studies before and I choose to use my reusable bags. Washable, bleachable Since I have had mine for years they’ve been used much more than 57x. When we do have to use plastic 1 x bags I reuse them as trash bags, sick bags, doggie poo bags.
There are all kinds of videos and tutorials on making grocery bags from old t-shirts and sweatshirts. Cut off the sleeves and seam where it attaches to the shirt body. Do the same with the crew neck. The neck is the bag opening and the shoulders are the handles. Sew up the bottom. Viola! You have a bag! That’s recycling. 😊
When I was 4 years old I remember my mom used the brown paper bags for our Drive in movie nights. She would put all our popcorn in two bags with butter and salt. One in the front seat and one in the back seat. ❤😊 Good memories.
I bought a package of 10 cheap clear shower caps. I use those over and over to cover my bread as it proofs. I bought a bunch of reusable bags that I’ve been using for my groceries, but I never really thought about how to clean them. They certainly wouldn’t work in the washing machine, but I think I’ll start spraying them with steralite each time I use them. I m also thinking about getting a Uvilizer to cut down on germs in our home. Perhaps I could use that to sanitize my bags too.
Only having my husbands soldiers income and living miles away from the shops I used to wash bread bags when I was washing up. They served me as freezer bags. I am so used to using what other people would throw away that I am proud to be a womble. Since I started to make greeting cards its amazing how much of ones daily trash can be used for art. I use cloth bags that go in the washing machine for shopping. Delivery is cheap. I love self reliance, I will watch eagerly for more. Thank you❤
I love wombling, its very addictive. For any non UK viewers it was a childrens series on TV in the UK where the characters reused old and thrown away items.
Not in the UK, so the "womble" got me. I use to tell people, we were "green" when green wasn't cool. My hubby's mom washed out those bread bags. He wore them over his shoes on rainy days to keep his feet dry.
Heavenly Days! For Germaphobics out there, we’d all have to live in a sterilized plastic bubble! I use my grocery bags for garbage bags that line our garbage cans. I like clean things, but I’m not a fanatic on germs. I just try to be careful to a certain degree!
About 30 years ago I made 4 large, very durable cotton canvas shopping tote bags from scraps of fabrics I had used for interior design projects. This was fabric I had already purchased and used for projects. The leftovers had no other purpose for me. I lined them, sewed them very well and have used them since. They have been washed so many times, but perhaps not often enough. Often times the checkers at stores compliment my bags for their construction and comment they are superior to most others they see. I think I’ve gotten incredible value from them and will continue to use them as long as they’re functional, but I will certainly be more mindful of washing them more frequently. Thanks Pam.
I have canvas bags I bought from our l9cat grocery store (Publix) nearly 35 years ago and they are still going strong. They wash up nicely and are wonderful. Those plastic reusables are just more plastic trash, in my opinion.
I had a bunch of reusable bags that I got from my local grocery store. Several years ago I heard about the fact that they harbor germs and need to be washed....so I did. HOWEVER after washing them they lost all stiffness and were a huge pain to use. Ended up tossing them. Next I went to a more canvas type that folds open to a box shape with a nice hard bottom. However I haven't ever tried to wash them because I am afraid the same problems would occur. PLUS the bottoms are a stiff cardboard covered in the same canvas material. They can't be washed because of the cardboard inside. At one point, when the stores weren't allowing reusable bags due to Covid, I was using 2 plastic milk crates I would bring to the store. They certainly aren't as easy to tote once they are filled since I can only (barely) fit two in a grocery cart and thus need to fill them to the hilt. Even so at least those could be more easily washed. Seems it's nearly impossible to do the right thing these days.....
My grandmother use tea towels for years to cover her dough. My grocery store here in Oregon still uses paper bags. I have the box type containers from the grocery store and shop online. They bring my groceries to the car in paper bags (which I reuse). The boxes in the car I do spray with stirline. Sometime I wonder if we can be to sterile with things. We do need to build up our immunity systems. Always always love your videos they are filled with so much information. Thank you.
I still use a tea towel to cover my dough and haven't had any problems. If you wanted something more sealable and have a silicone cookie mat, you could put that over the top.
Going barefoot outside is the best way to build up immunity to bacteria and pathogens. At my age I can't go barefoot anymore because my feet are so tender, but for most of my life I did go barefoot around the house outside and inside.
I always used a tea towel to cover my dough when I was baking. I've wondered why folks use plastic now. Back when I worked in Home Health Care, with very ill elderly I became very aware of bacteria loads. We have bacteria and viruses all around us. It's a matter of how much we've been exposed to and the state of our immune systems as to if it's going to make us sick. Of course those who are health vulnerable are most susceptible. It takes less "load" to make them sick. I'm sure we all remember a couple years ago when they recommended that we wipe down our groceries with disinfectant or let them sit in the garage for several days. Well, I was glad!! I've done this since working with the elderly and health compromised. Even after leaving that profession I would still wipe down my groceries during cold and flu season. My family has teased me for years, I'm ok with it. ;) I'm not recommending this to others it's just what I do. There are good bacteria that are sooo good for us to be exposed to and others that in the modern world we need to be careful of our exposure. Pam mentioned Ecoli. It's a HUGE issue these days and exposure to it is not going to build our immune systems. The old adage of "we need to expose ourselves to bacteria to build our immune system" is true to a extent. The world of our Grandmother's was very very different to the world of today. I so appreciate this video. Even if we don't change our grocery bag type or usage it's bringing awareness and that's the first step to changing our world. 🙂
My mother, 20-30-40 years ago used to wash the plastic shopping bags with warm soapy water if she was going to use them for food contact...then she would fold them and put them in the cupboard. The ones we didn't keep, she'd take back to the store to be recycled
Cotton seems like a much better alternative to me to over both single use and reusable plastic....it should be easy to wash on the hot cycle in the washing machine and dryer to keep them clean and sanitary, and you can also potentially mitigate the pesticide issue by creating bags out of ripped/old t-shirts if you have some sowing skill....as for commercially produced bags there will always be issues, reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose!
I use the single use plastic bag to proof bread, but I only use them for this purpose if they are brand new. When I go to Walmart etc, there are quite often unused bags that are attached to my bag and those are the ones I keep for this purpose.
We use a laundry basket and a cooler, we usually end up packing it in the car because we forget it, but its convenient to bring in the house later on and if we're not going straight home, the cooler keeps it cold.
I used the fabric paint drop clothes to line all the fabric bags I made for myself and for gifts . Also use them to put straps inside to hold milk sandglass bottles.
I love the reference to the old brown bags! I'm 72 years old and used the brown bags just as you indicated, for draining fried foods, for covering my books in school and then covering my children's books in school! Yes we lined our garbage cans with them and found all sorts of other things to do with them.
I bought several of the reusable bags, I use them in my deepfreezer to keep foods separated. Example pork meats in one, then I can grab the handles lift the and lower the bag easily to get what's needed.
We are big Costco shoppers. We've found that plastic nesting laundry baskets, that we can both carry, one on each side, when they're heavy. Costco also has these collapsible plastic baskets that can stack nicely in the back when loading the groceries in the car. Those baskets are easy to wipe out, and just give them a spray of lysol. Living in California, we've not been given single use plastic bags for a very long time. We do get thicker ones that are made for reuse, like you and many of us do, we use them for many things (they're great for picking up dog poop while you're on your morning and evening walk. We also use them for scooping the kitty box, tie it off and toss it in the trash.
I live in Delaware. Yes, we have a ban on the single use bags. When the restriction first went into effect, many stores temporarily used paper bags while they transitioned to reusable bags, at a cost between $0.10 - 2.00 each. Many shore towns have resorted to paper straws for the sake of marine life. Thank you for this information. I will be spraying my bags with Lysol until I order Steramine, and will be sewing heavy duty canvas bags that I can wash with detergent and a disinfectant. Yes, the paper bag book covers were the best!
OMG!!! I'm washing my re useable bags NOW. I think I am going to use plastic bins I have a couple they are easy to clean. My sister makes bags out of recycled plastic bags, she crochets them. I have 2 of her bags, I use them in my garden to collect vegetables. Easy to clean, just run water through them and they last forever. I used the other one as a laundry bag in the RV. Thanks for this video, it sure opened my eyes about re useable bags. I need to wash them every time and keep them out of our vehicles. Ewwww!!! 😐
Our Costco is about a two-hour drive away so we actually take coolers with us to keep the cold foods cold (and to keep the produce from freezing in the winter). We keep our coolers clean too!
That makes sense. We live 20 minutes from one of the local grocery stores and always request double plastic bags and during the summer (it gets up to 105-110 here), I always get the double bags and in many cases add single or double paper bags to keep our cold/frozen items as close to temperature as possible. I shopped at one store that charged an extra 5 cents for each paper bag and I had no problem with that. Jim
This is exactly what I do. I have coolers and have purchased plastic totes with handles. I got totes that fit in a grocery cart, and I can stack them. Not only it's easier to transport everything, all of this is very easy to disinfect. In a pinch, I go for paper bags.
Thanks for mentioning the STERAMINE that you use to spray food prep surfaces to sanitize them - I had never heard of it before and immediately went looking, found it on Amazon! I always go there to search things as I didn’t know if it was in your store!
I’m stocking up on steramine tablets. I had seen them mentioned earlier on a RU-vid channel by a person who commercially sold makeup. She sanitized all her equipment for the process of making cosmetics.
I use fabric covered boxes with handles that I got from Amazon for putting groceries in . When buying meat I do use store throwaway plastic bags and reuse those for small waste baskets in bathroom . Have used the boxes for at least five years and they are still working great .
I had a bag of grocery store plastic bags ready to go to recycling. I ended up using these bags for various things in the car before I had time to drop they off at the recycling. Now I keep a supply in the car. I use them a lot when I shop at box stores by filling them to help me carry groceries into the house.
I don't stress myself over all of the studies. I just can't, knowing how carbon et al is being weaponized. I have canvas bags that I bought years ago. They are sturdy and large and I really like them. They can be washed, and I'm not touching plastics all of the time, which is another issue. There is so much to this and unless you grow all of your own food, you will need a bag. Do your best. Don't stress the rest. Oh, and I do use a towel or the Cambro container, which I do like.
@labellavita22 Plants need carbon dioxide its not good to cut down on that. Plastic, glass, paper all recyclable but statistics say we only actually recycle a percentage of it. If you iron your single use bags on top of each other you can make a stronger bag.
@janice2992 plants do need carbon. If carbon gets too low, it will affect plant growth, which affects us. There were periods in history where it was many times higher than it is now, and this was before industrialization.
When you mentioned germs getting on the bags as they are slid over the checkout counter, I couldn't help but think that our groceries do too and also while sitting inside the grocery carts 🙂
Especially when people put their kids inside the cart - directly from the floor to cart. I first started to think about this with that problem we had a few years back.
Was thinking the same thing. I guess we could spray the inside of the buggy before using it and do self check out Ugh! Produce is my concern especially the produce that won’t be cooked.
I stopped putting my purse in the cart after I saw a mother pick up her child, who had an obvious full, leaking diaper and put the cart back with the others. 😮 Purses are something else that very few think about cleaning.
@@SisBetterbetAt least the cashiers spray down the conveyor belts at their station. I'm not sure about the self checkouts. As for produce, don't you wash it? Or soak it in a vinegar/water mixture for a few minutes. Bot only does it clean the produce, but helps keep it fresh longer.
@@SisBetterbet Self check out is no cleaner. One of my favorite grocery stores has converted all but 2 of the full sized check out to self serve ..... still has the conveyor belt. It ever things look a bit iffy, I simply as one of the employees stationed at check out to clean the belt, the scanner surface and the bagging carousel (which is the only place to place one's items .... ya can't bag directly unless you hit the "skip bagging" button for every item scanned.
Living in Oregon, where plastic 1 use bags are banned, i use sturdy, reusable bags. Dry goods go in the sturdy bags i bought on Amazon, anything wet or meat goes into the woven plastic type bags. They can be put through the washer in my bleach load. I miss my thin plastic 1 use bags, we reused them for small garbage can liners, garbage bags in the car, etc. I also wipe out the sturdy bags every once in awhile with sanitizing wipes
As always, Pam great food for thought. I've been using the same four reusable bags for years. Since my birthday is on earth day, recycle/reuse is my mantra. But the data on germs! oh my!!. I'll definitely be cleaning them much more often. I keep a 10% bleach solution under my sink, so I'll give them a good spray after use (once I put them through the washer). Also, you asked for ideas on what else we'd like to see. Well, I would love to see more of you and gardening. After all, it pertains to self-reliance. Keep up the good work--you too Jim. :)
We are about the same age. When I was little my mother had elasticized bowl covers that resembled shower caps. They came in various sizes. I’ve seen them recently in stores. Perhaps I try them for covering bread as it rises. Thanks for all you do for us.
Brown paper bags, like newspapers, are remarkedly sterile. The poly bags have little to "feed" microbes like the paper bags. My theory for the best grocery bag is the one I have with me. I do have a few cotton bags I made using "what was I thinking of" fabric.😅
I spent last summer sewing cloth "grocery" bags (same design and size as the plastic bags) using a pattern I found in JoAnn's. And I utilized some of my "what was I thinking" fabric, odds and ends of other fabrics, and even some rather worn and some hideous pillowcases that I'll never use on my bed. I set myself up to work "assembly line" style, cutting and stitching, lost track of what I was doing .... simply lost my mind cuz I was having so much fun ..... and ended up with 40 fully lined cloth grocery bags ..... so I sent 20 of them to my sister for her birthday/Christmas present. On top of that, 30 years ago, I made 4 tall grocery/shopping bags that a traditional paper grocery bag fits in as a liner .... in fact there was just enough of the fabric left to make a small matching short bags that the full sized bags fit into when neatly folded down (with the paper bags inside).
The amount of germs in the single use bags depends on how clean your hands are, how many people have touched the items you purchased and how clean their hands were. My single ues bags are usually my garbage bags. I am questioning the temperature of your trunk. If the vehicle is in sun, the temperature goes up dramatically. Check the temperatures if kids are left in a car... Even if the temperature is relatively low outside, it can be extremely high in the trunk oe cabin.
I still use my brown bags to put cookies and homemade Chex mix on. I use the plastic for trash bin liners in the bathroom and bedrooms. Thank you for another great video.
Have never been sick from any reusable bag and that includes what went on during the”covid “ stuff . It’s cld washing one’s hands and washing ones produce .
Connecticut banned single use plastic bags 18 months ago, so I saved as many as I could because I've reused them for years. I use the really big bags to carry my wet laundry out to my clothes line and back into the house to be put away. I do wash my plastic with soap and water.
When I was still teaching, I would buy two 1 liters of soda in the morning and double-bag them in large bags so they would not break through while walked 1/4 mile from the parking lot to my office. I would open one and open the second one by early afternoon and it was still cold. Thanks for watching our channel. Jim
As you said, there's no easy answers! My statwvis one of the ones that banned plastic bags. I'm still in favor of that ban. I do disinfect my reusable bags, but honestly, I don't make myself nuts over it. If we worry about everything that could possibly cause us harm, (and I'm not claimimg or implying that's what youre doing) we'd neverleave our homes!!
Remember the old string bags that could extend more and more and more. It always felt like I was watching my mother do a magic trick when she filled it. I kept thinking “surely it’s full now”…. Nope, still room for a tin of rice pudding, a head of cabbage and 5 packets of crisps 😂😂
My sister still uses our grandmother's string bag. She died over 40 years ago and the bag wasn't new then! I last saw these for sale in the Netherlands about 30 years ago. Thank you for the reminder, I will look online for a supplier.
Thank you for sharing more excellent information! I’ve been using Steramine since I saw your video about sanitizing surfaces. It seemed like common sense to use it to clean reusable bags so that’s what I’ve been doing. My state has gotten rid of single use bags and “collection” went to recycle. 🙂
And as the bag sits in the cart and gets pulled across the the register area it is also picking up more bacteria and viruses that then will be taken back home.
My maternal grandmother grew up during the depression. She saved and washed the bread bags. I had to get a bag out of her stash, and found it to be gross, and vowed to never save bread bags. Everyone knows the state of California causes cancer. I remember paper bag book covers. I cut paper bags to line the pans for baking fruit cake. I have been baking fruit cake for 60 years. Now I have to buy craft paper to line the pans. If you make fruit cake you know why it has to be paper. As I wask my hands and produce I don't agonize over germs. I use t shirt bags for garbage and recycle them.
Proof bread in your microwave. It's just a small insulated box and the dough requires no plastic or cover of any kind. This is for only a loaf or maybe two. My mother made six loaves at a time and the dough rose in the sink. She ran an inch of hot water in the sink, set the big bread bowl in the sink, and lay a sheet of old plastic like you might put over a window in the winter over the whole sink. She did that for years. Worked great, and I'd sure like to have a slice of her bread again . . .
In Australia you have bring your own bag or pay for one , thicker plastic or paper , I made my own shopping bags at least 10 years ago , I try to avoid plastic where I can , I use a clean tea towel to cover my bread while it proves . If I ever get a plastic bag I use it until they fall apart , they are washes and dried many times before they are no longer useful .
Many times when I shop, the plastic bags have holes in them. When I do see the tears, I am able to get ones, but sometimes, almost lose the contents because I do not see them. Jim
I have found that washing the Costco cool bags fall apart after washing in a washing machine. I wipe the outside and use a bleach soap spray, scrub it then rinse it really well and airdry out side.
BEFORE people criticize your videos for how you use things, they need to think about how you are going to use the items made (ex: personal consumption vs giving or selling to others). Maybe you had cleaned the bag or had picked up an additional bag that had not been used before. You present information, then it up to the viewer to decide how they are going to use the information. Some modifications need to be made to fit the consumers needs/uses. I reuse my plastic bags in small trash cans. The plastic bags that have holes in the bottom go into recycling at a local Wal-Mart (they have recycle bins). People need to consider that “germs” are found on EVERY ITEM in a store placed there by MANY different ways. You can not escape “germs”. Even if you wash the bags in antibacterial ways… they will gather “germs” BTW. I do like watching your videos. Especially enjoy the dehydrated vs freeze drying ones.
We used the brown bags for book covers also. Thank you for the memory. There are so many uses for brown paper sacks. I save all the Azure Standard brown packaging bags . I cut them open and use them for fried food. Also used the brown bags yearly in the classroom for Thanksgiving costumes the children made. Also we wrap presents in brown bags also.
I had the same concerns about bags and then I started using a couple of the 26qt Joytutu fridge/freezers (that you recommended) in my car to store food in transit from the Costco and to other stores. I found that I could no longer lift a Joytutu full of food. I found a woman on Etsy that sewed custom bags for the Joytutus with handles in nylon ripstop that I fill at the store, tote to the car and eventually tote into the house, and then toss them into the washer & drip dry. Problem solved without transferring stuff from bag to bag. As needed, one Joytutu is set on freezing & one set on fridge. Other bags are used for boxed and loose groceries. They are small but sturdy and don’t add bulk to the washer and an old woman can handle them easily.
I am from Canada plastic one time use bags are banned, I never thought about my reusable bags carrying germs and stuff I will be going threw mine and sorting threw washable and getting rid of the ones like your dollar store bag, I’ve also invested in plastic bins that fit in the cart for groceries I can disinfect those reg now. I don’t know about where you are but our stores normally have disinfectant and wipes for the carts and hands I do use. This was a very informative video would love to see more on subjects like this things you just don’t think about as being important, like I was told that wearing aprons to cook and prep food was to keep germs from your clothes from getting into the food as well as keeping those clothes clean, but I seldom see people using them anymore. But if you went from shopping to cooking or gardening wouldn’t the chance of contamination be greater without an apron on just thoughts thank you for all the great content
Most hot water heaters are set at no higher than 120 degrees F, not 140 degrees, so even washing in hot soapy water isn’t going to work effectively without disinfectant. I read an article years ago warning about putting your purse or other bags, especially in the child seat of store shopping carts, since little ones sitting there may have a leaky diaper, also shopping carts transfer infections like impetigo. When my grandchildren were young, my daughter had a cloth “liner” which was put into the cart’s seat to protect her toddlers from picking up or transferring their germs from/to the cart. How many times do you wash or disinfect your purse, your wallet, your credit cards? I would guess for most of us, seldom to never. I shudder when my husband comes home and drops the grocery filled bags on my counter tops, kitchen table, placemats, etc. I prefer them on the floor. Our living environments aren’t sterile. We need exposure to “germs” to keep our immune systems healthy. I have two reusable “cold temp” totes, one for meats and leaky items, & the other for produce, eggs, bags of frozen items. Certainly helps with cross contamination between raw meat and raw veggies! Wipe bags out with steramine after shopping. Spray the outside and let air dry. I think we all try to do the best we can to protect the environment and ourselves from harmful things. Personally, I try to do a little extra to protect the very young, older folks, and anyone else who is immune compromised. Thanks Pam and Jim for all your time, work, and research on this is so many other subjects. We all need these reminders and updates on research. Always look forward to your videos. 😊
Make reusable bags using old clothing, clothing that isn't sellable through a thrift store. Polyester (not knit fabric) out-of-style pants work great, sturdy, easily toss in washing machine and the pants would otherwise end up in the landfill. Instead of just a short handle, extend the strap down the sides of the bags to under the bottom to make it more sturdy. Jeans work well, too, but they are usually sellable, to donate, so look for items that can no longer be worn.
My cloth bags go in the washer weekly with my kitchen towels on hot water with Lysol sanitizing detergent additive. My Costco bag goes in at least once a month and I don’t take it in the store. I’m not worried.
@roseredhomestead thanks to you and Jim for sharing extremely helpful information regarding all things homesteading. It’s greatly appreciated. Because of your demonstration, I purchased Steramine tablets. The directions say to use 1-2 tablets per gallon of water. In my experience, it’s unusual to give an option of product use for a specified amount of liquid. Do you have any research or personal experience recommendations as to if it’s better to use 2 verses one? Would there be certain overly “germy” situations that may require 2 tablets? Thank you in advance for your response. ❤
Our state of Colorado has banned the plastic bags that they put our checkout food in but they still have the plastic bags that you put your vegetables in from the bins. This seems crazy to me. We have had these collapsing boxes with handles that we have used for a few years now. They have hard cardboard on sides and bottom for making them sturdy with the outside of cardboard some kind of material. Not sure what the material is made of. But I do wash them all the time. Not just the inside of the box but outsides. We purchased them at a grocery store. We always saved the plastic bags when given out for when we went camping. We would use them for our garbage bags when camping. I would use more than one per day as I don’t like to have the garbage in our camper or in our tent if tenting. I have always thought that the stores should wash down those conveyor belts very often. I don’t think they do. Blood from meat pkgs or any pkg that has product on the outside can be dangerous for us. When we go to Costco we don’t put hardly anything on the conveyor belt….we let them price the item in the carts. We never have a cart load of things. Ha! I know the carts aren’t clean either. I am afraid I have always been very careful with my food. Especially with meat, chicken and pork. I get ribbed about how fuzzy I am about bacteria but I don’t care. Those plastic bags you can get at most stores near the checkout are good for transporting clothes, things we do take camping with us like bike life vests, bike shoes, helmets, etc. The Costco bag you have is similar to one we have and is very useful in summer months for sure. A lot of good info here Pam.
Sams doesn’t use bags we have to take the grocery cart to our car and load the groceries into our car I had not thought of the heat in the car causing health problems I will leave them in the house and I will spray them to disinfect. I think about germs on the food packaging we don’t know where that packaging has been and we bring it into our home. Thanks for your research about the bags
If you try washing the reusable bags in the washing machine it ruins them. It would be more effective to spray them out with disinfectant than to wash them
In WA State we have to have reusable grocery bags. We are charged if we have to have one of their thick reuse bags. I have many purchased canvas type bags. I wipe them out with disinfectant. The store ones are worse for the environment.
Wow! That’s a lot if information I didn’t want to think about!! Lol! Thank you for going down this rabbit hole and giving me ideas I can use. On my way to order some stearamine
I use the disposal shower caps from Amazon. 100 count. Fits right over the bowl perfectly but are they clean??? I don't know now that you are bringing this up. Hmmm? All my glass bowls have plastic lids so maybe that's the best....
I remember 60 years ago my grandmother and mother had white cotton towels (made from flour sacks) that were marked "baking". They were only used to cover dough while it was rising. On wash day they were washed with the other white kitchen towels (only white, no color) and hung in the sun to dry. There was always a dab of bleach in the wash water and bluing in the rinse (I still blue whites). Those towels were only used for baking. I use two large plastic bags to carry recycling to the bin, if they've gotten dirty I wash them, if not both are sprayed with disinfectant. Both bags are at least 10 years old. My shopping bag is from Aldi. It is 15 years old. It's heavy canvas it can be dated because it still has the original Aldi logo from 2002. ALL youtube channels should encourage people to purchase good quality products, repair if necessary and always clean and sanitize between uses. Your cold bag from Costco is an excellent example. In future videos I hope you continue to encourage people to properly reuse and repurpose good quality products. Keep up the GOOD work !
I would love to see paper bags come back, I think it would be a good solution for less impact on the land fills, etc. Thank you for putting so much time and effort in your videos!!
Very interesting video. Many many years ago I was at a market and I handed the grocery clerk my bags, when she opened it very gingerly, and was surprised that it was clean inside. She says most of the time people never wash these bags, and we don’t know what we’re gonna find in them. That stuck with me ,soon after I invested in canvas bags which could be washed often, and it doesn’t break down or change the integrity of the bag. I’ve been watching a woman from Azerbaijan that bakes frequently. She never uses any kind of plastic. She always uses blankets or towels ,it looks like her bread rises beautifully. I’ve only bake bread a few times,I want to start this year, but I was wondering what’s the advantage and disadvantage of using cloth towels over your dough. Love your channel. there’s a new channel or I should say somewhat new it’s been around for maybe four years but it’s called black folks love canning too. They reference you all of the time for scientific method of canning. Just wanted to let you know.
@@RoseRedHomesteadSimply wet the kitchen towel before use and it works perfectly. Or use a plate, cutting board, baking sheet or similar to cover the bowl.
@@buckonono7996 Yes, you really don't need a plastic bag for it. Through every generation before us, our ancestors baked bread long before plastic was invented. Many people are now far too dependent on plastic items or disposable products, such as paper towels, kitchen rolls, or disposable tableware.
You could bite the bullet from time to time and bag at the store into the brown paper bags (probably a nickel or dime a piece) and then reuse them on future shopping trips, Yes, from time to time they will need to be replaced, but if you like bagging in paper, that's an option. I would though suggest that you somehow personalize the bags when you get them home so that the store does try to make you pay for them again on a future trip. 😄 Give the kids colored markers and let them go to town with their art work.
I actually worry about my groceries picking up bacteria from the conveyor belt at checkout...No way around that, but I do keep my reusable, insulated bags in my car trunk -- I just have the checkout person place the items back in my basket and then I put them in my reusable bags as I'm putting them in the car. Maybe slightly better?
Just shared your video with some folks. I can recall an article a few years back mentioning that the grocery seat was not sanitary....basically because of all the toddlers sitting there with their diapers. I think your Steramine on the reusable bags is the best solution. Short of extreme hot water and bleach in the washer on cloth bags, I don't see a real choice. They would have to be washed every single use and you would doing a special load for them in most cases. I don't take my bags into Aldi, but I usually pack my bags from the cart to the bags in the car. But that still does alleviate anything that would be on the groceries from the cart or belt. I'm not a squeamish person, but ew.
I love it. Thanks for the research. I haven't even thought about this before. I've been using these bags as garbage bags for my bathrooms for years and for crafting scraps. Now that I'm aware, I'll start sanitizing as well. Thank you..
Thank you Pam and Jim. A possible source of grocery bag contamination is the packages of food from the grocery shelves. It is transported from the manufacturer and handled by humans and machines, stored in warehouses, and transported again (and maybe again) before it is stocked on our grocery shelves. The item may be picked up and replaced by a curious shopper. Then, we place our selections in a grocery cart - and in my community the handles are cleaned but the cart baskets are questionable. So I would be concerned about the inside and outside of any of my grocery bags. When I returned from Saudi after the first Gulf War in 1991, everyone began to use bottled water. One of the concerns at that time was the possible contamination of the bottles' exteriors by rodent urine and feces while the products were stored in warehouses. I don't know how valid that concern was then or is today. I do know that I still wipe the top of a bottle of water with a disinfectant wipe before opening it for use (and I use my own refillable bottles as much as possible).
Pam, would you list the spray cleaner you use? I did not catch what you called it. I checked your Amazon store hoping to see it listed there. I am so thankful to you doing these videos. 👍🏻💕
Whatever contaminated the reusable bag, would also contaminate the single use bag. Every hand that touches the grocery items during stocking and shopping leaves a trace. The items also sit on the conveyor belt that could have drippings/blood from raw meat.
And…. I love your solutions! I also watch for canvas/cotton bags at thrift stores. And…. Thank you for the Steramine! It makes me feel better prepared to care for my family.
