Is groping fruit in the produce department acceptable behavior in a pandemic?

[TexasTowelie]

Remember the early days of the pandemic? People were scared to leave their homes. If you needed food, you went online, filled out an order and either had the grocery store deliver it or they would bring it to your car. You'd take your food and wash it and yourself before eating it. Good times! UGH!

It's a few months later into the pandemic and that behavior has changed. People feel a lot more comfortable doing their own grocery shopping. While the groceries stores are crowded like they were pre-Covid, there are a fair amount of people in them at any given time. Yes, precautions are still needed. You see dots at the check out aisles where you should stand to keep six feet away from the person checking out in front of you...social distancing! Most of the aisles are one way. Masks are required. All of them are a good thing. Safety first!

But, every so often I see things that make me shake my head. Today was one of those days.....

We walk into the store and first stop is the produce section. Watermelon, check! Potatoes, check! Corn, check! On to the next section.

Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/hippy-shakes/2020/07/is-groping-fruit-in-the-produce-department-acceptable-behavior-in-a-pandemic/

[Sherman A1]

1. Having worked Produce for 2 of my 4+ decades

In grocery, I don’t see a huge issue. The product is handled multiple times prior to it being on display and as it is being displayed. There isn’t much way around it with current set-ups and current norms. Either wear gloves and/or be sure to wash your hands when you get home and you should be fine. One hopes that everyone is washing their produce prior to consuming it anyway. My understanding if the virus is that it doesn’t survive to well on surfaces.

[hlthe2b]

2. I wash produce, but this is making me less willing to buy a lot of fresh products I had previously..

I buy baking potatoes because I've always washed them thoroughly and they are going to be cooked after all. Onions, garlic--well it is going to be peeled. But, I'm buying more frozen fruit or that which can be soaked to cleanse (grapes).

For other fresh produce, I just find it so time-consuming that I'm buying a bit less. In previous times, I might have trusted pre-washed packaged salad greens and not rinse it or soaked it in a vinegar solution, but I just can't now (and not only because of COVID-19), so I'm (sadly) eating a few less salads and a bit more frozen broccoli.

[R B Garr]

3. Well, I've thought about that, and folks are welcome

to buy the rotten fruit. But I’ll buy the fresh fruit and I pick up packages to get the freshest, but I’ve never opened blueberries. That seems extreme.

I saw threads here earlier about not handling merchandise too much, and that makes sense, but I do look over produce pretty well.

[Hortensis]

4. Nope. I've been taking what I pick up, which has required

some behavior modification. Almost everything can be assessed adequately by eye. Not avocados! But one of the plastic produce bags can be used to handle things through when needed.

[C_U_L8R]

5. Best to wear gloves

Or as another DUer suggested when I asked the same question, just slip a veggie bag over your hand if you need to give a squeeze. That seems the most considerate thing to do.

[genxlib]

6. A parallel to this is smell

There are certain fruits that require a smell for me to tell if it is ripe. Namely peaches and cantaloupe.

Can’t do it with a mask In addition to the problem with excess handling. It sucks because summer fruit is one of the things I like most about summer in the brutally hot sub tropics.

[3Hotdogs]

7. Is it ok to give the Charmin' a little goose? (just a little one?)

[Ferrets are Cool]

8. On those rare occasions that I MUST visit the inside of a grocery store

I wear a mask AND gloves.

[MineralMan]

9. I'm tall and have long arms.

I pick produce from the back of the display. I see most people feeling up the veggies and fruits near the front of the display, mostly. Beyond that, I don't worry much about it. I choose produce items by checking the appearance, and never put back anything.