The authorities have not yet sent out fines for driving into designated lanes from which the “working days” signs have disappeared.

Ready-made food from supermarkets: salvation or danger

Probably, many of us either often buy ready-made food ourselves in the grocery and culinary departments of supermarkets, or know people who at least sometimes eat ready-made store-bought meals. This practice is common throughout the world.

Prepared food appeared on the shelves of grocery stores precisely because there was a demand for it. In addition, such products (provided that they are fresh, prepared according to the rules, in compliance with sanitary standards) have many advantages.

Pros of buying ready-made food:

• saving time on cooking, which is important for busy people;
• the opportunity to eat delicious dishes without knowing or not being able to cook on your own;
• variety in the menu: in supermarkets, the choice of ready-made food is, as a rule, always quite rich;
• saving money: home-prepared meals are not always cheaper than store-bought ones, and many supermarkets offer significant discounts on ready-made food at certain hours;
• portion size: the ability to buy exactly as much as you need for lunch or dinner;
• you can create an individual menu for each family member;
• a convenient option for lunches at work or meals on a business trip.

But despite all the advantages of purchased food, many consumers categorically refuse to buy ready-made meals, arguing their position with the few but very significant disadvantages of such a service. Firstly, when buying food in a store, it is difficult to predict what the dish was prepared from: how fresh the ingredients are, what quality of meat, fish or vegetables were used, what the sauce was made from. Secondly, it always remains a mystery to the buyer who prepared the dish and under what conditions. For example, when buying such food, we will never know whether the dishes and food are washed well before cooking, how often the frying oil is changed, and finally how neat and healthy the person who prepared the food for sale was.

Thirdly, doubts may arise about the freshness of the food sold. Not everyone will be able to distinguish today's stew from yesterday's reheated meat by eye. Moreover, culinary workers, as a rule, know many secrets on how to “reanimate” yesterday’s food and make it look freshly prepared.

The degree of danger from eating ready-made store-bought food depends entirely on how much the store values ​​its name. There is a widespread belief that it is safer to buy prepared food in large supermarkets than in small shops near your home. Meanwhile, scandals associated with various retail chains, which regularly emerge, cast doubt on the fairness of such a judgment.

Coconut oil

“Coconut oil is pure poison for the body if you eat it,” says Karin Michels. Director of the Institute for Prevention and Epidemiology of Cancer at the University of Freiburg. The professor also stated that coconut oil is the worst thing a person can eat. This oil is 80% saturated fat. This is twice as much as lard. Like trans fats, it leads to the production of bad cholesterol.

Which products are best to avoid?

Often, after watching the news and journalistic investigations about the quality of goods sold in some retail chains, the desire to buy products in stores completely disappears. Of course, you can’t completely stop buying food, but there are still ways to protect yourself and your family. To do this, you need to know what you can and cannot buy in supermarkets.

Domestic experts have long named a list of the most dangerous products in the supermarket that you should never buy. This:

• ready-made salads;
• meat and cheese slices;
• ground meat;
• grilled chickens;
• smoked fish and poultry;
• store cooking;
• baked goods, candies and other store-packaged products;
• cakes and desserts with cream.

And this food was included in the list of the most dangerous products from the supermarket for a number of reasons, which will be discussed further. Did you know that buying most ready-made meals in any supermarket is a kind of lottery, because there is almost always a risk of poisoning. The fact is that in the vast majority of cases, retail outlets do not adhere to the officially established shelf life of prepared food, because it is not financially profitable. Among the cold appetizers, pates, fish products, jellied meat dishes, jellied meats and salads spoil the most quickly. By the way, according to professional chefs, most ready-made salads can be stored for no more than 30 minutes, and hot dishes for up to 2 hours. True, supermarkets adhere to completely different standards. The officially permitted storage time for culinary products is 12-48 hours (depending on the type of product). Fried fish and meat, boiled cauliflower and other vegetables after heat treatment have a rather short shelf life. Dishes in sauce last a little longer than dry ones, but this also poses a certain danger: in supermarkets, sauce is often used to disguise stale food. Stores can sell smoked poultry for the longest time – up to 72 hours. Among desserts, the least shelf-stable products are those with fatty creams, whipped cream, mousses, and jellies.

However, in practice these norms are not always adhered to. Salads, for example, can be displayed behind a glass display until the end, that is, until they give off an unpleasant smell. By the way, at first, after the expiration of the acceptable shelf life, they can still remain quite tasty, although already dangerous for consumption (especially for small children), because no one has canceled chemical processes and the growth of bacteria in food. Having eaten expired food, you can end up in the hospital for a long time.

Artificial sweeteners

In advanced countries, sweeteners are prohibited. Many of them are considered not useful, but dangerous. This list includes:

• aspartame;
• xylitol;
• fructose;
• acesulfame;
• saccharin;
• sorbitol;
• cyclamate.

The most famous and harmful of these sweeteners is aspartame. It is even better for diabetics never to use it. This product destabilizes sugar levels. Research shows that aspartame does not help you lose weight. On the contrary, it causes appetite, and as a result, weight gain. More severe consequences of its use: destructive effects on the structure of the brain, nervous system and liver. It has been scientifically proven that aspartame can subsequently cause cancer in these organs.

What are the dangers of products purchased on promotion?

On the eve of the holidays, many stores delight customers with various promotions and discounts. And food departments also run promotions like “three for the price of two” or “buy one and get the other free” during the holiday periods. “Why do they need this?” – some naive buyers are surprised and quickly fill their baskets with promotional products. And, as a rule, they make a huge mistake. As experts explain, thanks to such promotions, stores usually get rid of things that should have been thrown away long ago. The promotion does not include goods that are quickly swept off the shelves on ordinary days.

Food market researchers regularly find evidence that waste-free production is well established in our supermarkets. That is, the main task of the store is to sell all the goods at any price. This is how we came up with the concept of “reanimation” of spoiled products, which then become promotional items.

Processed red meat

These include: canned meat, bacon, sausages and sausages, red meat sausages, juicy beef. Processed meats undergo various treatments to improve flavor and increase shelf life.

According to scientists from Britain, this is one of those products that contribute to the appearance of malignant tumors. In particular, red processed meat in the diet increases the risk of developing stomach and intestinal cancer.

How supermarkets reanimate spoiled food

There are many ways to reintroduce illusory freshness to products. And some types of food can be “resuscitated” more easily than others. These are sausages, semi-finished products, smoked fish, caviar, cooking, baking, sweets, drinks. By the way, store cooking is often the “last refuge” for the majority of illiquid goods. In the best case, second-rate products are used; in the worst case, they are long past their expiration date.

Rewriting the expiration date

“Resuscitation” of an expired product means giving it a new life in any way and extending its shelf life. The easiest way to do this is by simply re-sticking a sticker with the production date (often just over the factory one). Cookies, sweets, drinks and cosmetics are usually “rejuvenated” in this way. As a rule, before the holidays, such goods are formed into gift sets, packaged in bright, beautiful wrappers (so that the production date is not visible), decorated with large bows and sold “at a very competitive price.”

The production date of processed cheese, sauces, sour cream, milk and many other products is “corrected” using acetone or cologne. Some products remain without an expiration date and inattentive buyers do not even notice it. On others, clever sellers are churning out new numbers. This trick usually works with hermetically packaged goods and products whose appearance does not yet reveal their “advanced age.” By the way, you need to be very careful with foreign-made goods. Sometimes in supermarkets they put stickers with translations on the containers, on which, oddly enough, the expiration date differs from the factory one.

To avoid getting spoiled, you should carefully study the product label: it should clearly show the production date and shelf life indicated by the manufacturer directly on the original packaging.

Culinary masterpieces from... waste

The main risks of purchased food are usually associated with store-bought cooking. To be more precise, with the quality of ingredients, methods of preparation and methods of storing finished dishes. Facts of using expired products have surfaced more than once, when their suspicious taste and smell were masked with a large number of spices and sauces, and fried chicken fillet with a delicious crust of breadcrumbs inside turned out to be a piece of spoiled meat.

By the way, if the officially permitted shelf life of fried foods has expired, they can be reheated and displayed in the display case as fresh. The dried cutlets are also heated and generously decorated with sauce and herbs, and then offered to us as “fresh from the frying pan.”

When is bath day in supermarkets?

Do you know what they do with old, slime-covered goods? When signs of age are not yet very noticeable, the products are simply wiped with rags soaked in vegetable oil. If it is not possible to revive the product in this way, the food is sent to a bath with a special solution that eliminates mucus and the smell of rotten meat. After which the product looks like new, but poisons like real poison.

Dangerous cutting

Spoiled, moldy sausages are thoroughly washed with various detergents, then greased with vegetable oil for shine and sent back for sale. If you can’t return the sausage to its marketable state using this method, it’s also not a problem, because there is another way to “reanimate” it – slicing. The main thing is to carefully chop the sausage, put it in a tray, pack it with film and stick a sticker on top, on which, of course, indicate the date the sausage was packaged, thereby turning the spoiled product into a fresh snack. The same tricks are used with smoked fish and cheese. If the cheese already looks so bad that it is not suitable for slicing, then it is made into shavings, which are then sold as an additive to pizza or hot sandwiches. This is why experts strongly recommend not buying pre-cut foods in supermarkets.

Rot Salads

Store-bought loose salads usually contain everything that can’t be sold to even the most naive and least picky customers. The overwhelming majority of salad ingredients are stale products, often already quite rotten. What’s even more dangerous is that vegetable snacks often contain expired preserves and pickles (mushrooms, corn, peas, pickled vegetables, herring), which can cause severe poisoning and botulism.

Even if the salad was originally prepared from fresh vegetables, after the expiration of the shelf life it is also “revived”. The secret is very simple: seasoned vegetables are seasoned with opaque sauces, which hide the tired appearance of the ingredients and mask their taste. By the way, many chains use their own sauces for dressing. And this is another opportunity to “write off” what has been left behind.

The sanitary lifespan of Olivier is no more than 12 hours, but in some supermarkets the salad, beloved by many, can be sold for 3 days. At the initial stage of resuscitation, vinegar and more herbs can be added to the dish. If the “antiquity” of a dish becomes noticeable externally, it is simply thrown into a colander and... washed under running water. Then they add a fresh portion of the sauce and, voila - we have a fresh, just prepared salad with a new preparation date.

Caviar with potassium permanganate

If anyone thinks that expired caviar cannot be “revived,” they are very mistaken. Banks of red caviar that have been stale since the holidays are revived with the help of... potassium permanganate. To do this, open the jars, dump the contents into a common container and wash the caviar with a solution of potassium permanganate. Then the product is packaged in plastic containers and placed on the counter. To avoid poisoning from the delicacy, experts advise never buying caviar in store-bought packaging. Only in branded jars that indicate the manufacturer's data and date of issue.

Fish that died a natural death

Spoiled fish is one of the most dangerous foods for humans. But this fact does not stop the owners of supermarkets and they easily slip us dead meat under the guise of a fresh product. And this is how they do it. If the fish in the aquarium dies, it is not thrown away, but caught from the vessel, cleaned and first put up for sale as chilled, and then frozen or processed into semi-finished products.

But even if you buy live fish from an aquarium, you can also very well become a victim of deception. Clever entrepreneurs do not intentionally saturate the aquarium with the required amount of oxygen. In such conditions, the fish carcass draws water and due to this, sometimes increases its weight by even 30 percent. Thus, the buyer pays extra for ordinary water. Something similar happens with frozen seafood. In supermarkets, they are often deliberately defrosted and frozen several times in order to “build up” a thick ice crust. The end result is the same: you buy a product and pay for ice.

Mixing fresh and yesterday

Another common trick of store cooks is mixing fresh produce with yesterday's leftovers. This trick works great with side dishes and salads. Such dishes, as a rule, look very appetizing in appearance, but fermentation processes rapidly occur in them and bacteria multiply, causing poisoning.

Chicken tricks

If fresh chicken was not sold yesterday or today, then, most likely, tomorrow it will return to the counter of the same store, but already baked on the grill and generously seasoned with spices. Didn’t sell even in this form? Then she has another chance - to become minced meat and, in the company of aromatic seasonings, end up in pies, pancakes, cutlets and even pilaf.

Stale “fresh” chicken can continue its life in another way - in the form of an ingredient in one of the salads prepared in a grocery store. To get rid of the unpleasant smell of old meat, simply boil it in water with onions and spices.

Smoked meats? No, don't!

Another great way to disguise the staleness of poultry, meat or fish is smoking. The smell of smoke and a skillfully selected mixture of spices overpowers not only the suspicious odor, but also the taste of the old product. In addition, you should not think that old products for “rebirth” end up in a real smokehouse. In stores they are “smoked” in a cheaper, faster and more accessible way - using “chemistry”. Spoiled meat and fish are simply poured with a special solution, which gives the food a characteristic golden color and smoky aroma. Doctors have been talking about the dangers of such mixtures for “smoking” for quite some time, but there are still daredevils who are ready to buy fake smoked products, stuffed with chemicals, which may contain the causative agent of botulism and other deadly diseases.

Dangerous stuffing

Home-produced minced meat is an ideal way for supermarkets to sell everything that is not sold in one piece. In the best case, skins, small bones and many other parts will accompany the juicy fresh meat. In the worst case, everything that could not be sold earlier and for which there are no other methods of “reanimation” will be used for minced meat. Perhaps there is no need to talk for a long time about the dangers of such food.

How many lives does baking have?

Things are no better with baking. The first violations may occur at the stage of kneading the dough - if the supermarket has its own bakery. You can use eggs that are cracked and not fresh, old flour or flour accidentally spilled on the floor, expired nuts, dried fruits and seeds.

If the fragrant crispy buns did not find their buyer on the day of baking, then this is not a guarantee that they will definitely be written off and sent to the trash heap. The product usually faces a different fate: stale baked goods can simply be ground and made into, for example, the well-known Potato cake.

You should also be careful when buying cakes: the production date on packaging in supermarkets can be changed several times before the product is sold. The danger of an expired cake is that the cream spoils very quickly and can cause severe poisoning. By the way, cookies sold by weight also live more than one life in the store. Often, baked goods are repackaged monthly, each time indicating a new production date on the container.

No one throws away stale bread either. It is either used for breadcrumbs or used to bake fresh products. To do this, old loaves are soaked in water and added to fresh dough. If the bread you bought becomes stale suspiciously quickly and crumbles badly, then, most likely, you were “lucky” to purchase just such baked goods.

Breakfast cereals and corn sticks

Breakfast cereals seem healthy. It is difficult to imagine how they could be dangerous to the human body. However, everything is simple - critical sugar levels, preservatives. Corn sticks and some types of muesli and cereals are even more harmful. Sugar may not be used in production: it burns at a temperature of 140°. Instead - cyclamate.

When it comes to high sugar content, white chocolate is also at the top of the list. The bar contains as many as 24 teaspoons. The daily norm for a person is 6 spoons.

Ways to protect yourself from low-quality products

Buy food only from stores with an impeccable reputation

This is a universal and main rule. It is safer to buy perishable products in retail chains where strict quality control of the goods is observed, and where there is always a busy flow of buyers (thanks to this, the goods do not have time to sit on the shelves).

Pay attention to the storage conditions of the goods

According to sanitary standards, different types of finished products must be stored at different temperatures, that is, in different display cases. For example, dishes with creams are kept at temperatures up to 6 degrees Celsius, chilled fish and meat in conditions up to +2.

If a supermarket sells sushi or rolls, then they should not contain raw fish - only salted or smoked. You should absolutely not buy a delicacy if it is not packaged in original packaging indicating the manufacturer, date and time of manufacture, and shelf life. By the way, such food should be stored at a temperature of 2 to 6 degrees Celsius for 6-72 hours (depending on the type). How to check the temperature in a display case? Very simple. According to the rules, it must have a thermometer, and it must be placed so that the buyer can see its readings.

Check the expiration date

Near each tray of prepared food there should be a card with information about the manufacturer, the date and time of preparation, as well as the deadline for its sale. Dishes made from crushed ingredients can be stored in a display case for up to 12 hours, chilled fish and meat - up to 24. But if there is no information card near the container, then eating such food can be hazardous to health. Another nuance that is important to remember when checking the expiration date of store-bought food: the more preservatives in the food, the longer it will be stored. At best, manufacturers can extend the freshness of food through spices and salt; at worst, through synthetic E-additives.

Frozen semi-finished products should only be stored in freezers at temperatures from 0 to minus 20 degrees. But when deciding to buy frozen food, you should remember that the warmer it is in the freezer, the faster the food spoils, but at the same time, the colder it is, the worse the taste and the less beneficial properties remain in the product.

Do not hesitate to ask for a document confirming the quality of the product

At the buyer's request, the seller is obliged to present a document confirming the freshness of the products: a declaration of conformity and a delivery note (it must contain the date and time of production, shelf life). Some manufacturers indicate only the date of packaging on product packaging, but do not mention a word about the time of manufacture of the product itself. According to the Law “On Protection of Consumer Rights” this is a gross violation. The absence of this information on the packaging can be regarded as evidence that the product is not fresh.

Trans fats

Most often it is regular margarine. As a result: pastries, cakes, and puff pastry products contain trans fats. It is also better not to include store-bought fish sticks in your diet for the same reason. You need to look closely at the oil. Sometimes a product made from unhealthy fats is passed off as oil with a fat content of 72.5%. While the real one should have at least 82.5%.

In the countries of the European Union there is a law banning the use of trans fats. They are considered the most life-threatening. In Russia, the content of this product is allowed up to 8%. Trans fats are a source of bad cholesterol. It has been proven that they cause the development of heart and vascular diseases and diabetes.

How to identify a good seller on the market?

First, a good salesperson cares about the presentation of his product. Everything should be neatly laid out in boxes, crates or trays - it all depends on the type of product, as well as its volume. And the purchased goods need to be packaged in paper or cellophane bags. If you are purchasing during the warm season, make sure that pests and insects do not have access to food. This is fraught with dangerous helminth infections, food poisoning, or other alternative reactions of the body to substances entering it.

Secondly, monitor the behavior of the seller. It is better not to deal with those who actively bargain or advertise their products too zealously and offer incredible discounts. Such actions can indicate both good business acumen and the fact that a person is ready to cling to any client and every penny. And this usually affects the quality of food.

Last but not least, find out what your friends think about the sellers. If this is not possible, watch others. Usually there are always crowds of people around good tents or stalls. Better to wait in line but get high quality food, right? You can also take advantage of modern technologies. Modern standards oblige all traders to sign the name of their business or the name of the individual entrepreneur. Look on the Internet for opinions about the outlet, and then you can make the purchase with peace of mind.

Mayonnaise and ketchup

Sauces, in principle, are famous for the presence of thickeners and preservatives. But mayonnaise and ketchup are people's favorite foods. Will they continue to be so popular if some things are revealed?

The most important thing to know: mayonnaise cannot be taken in plastic buckets. The vinegar in mayonnaise corrodes plastic and releases carcinogens. And mayonnaise itself is a source of trans fats that deceive the body. Trans fats are built in instead of the necessary omega-3 and -6. Which leads to the appearance of tumors and increases the risk of developing diabetes.

Ketchup and canned tomato sauces contain chemical colors and large amounts of sugar.