Step by Step Guide to Protecting Yourself from Coronavirus During Grocery Shopping and Food Delivery

It’s a very strange time in our world where face masks and surgical gloves are the norms and social distancing isn’t considered rude but mandated.

This extends to every part of our life including getting that good old nourishing sustenance called food.

Whether you’re an avid cook in your own kitchen or order out from restaurants on the regular, it’s incredibly important to protect yourself, as well as others, by following strict food safety guidelines. These guidelines, provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, provide us with a great backbone of security and the ability to take control of our risk factors as best as possible.

In these uncertain times, this is a powerful antidote to pandemic-related fears and anxieties!

How Long Does Coronavirus Live on Surfaces?

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Why is it so important to be vigilant about washing your hands, not touching your face, washing clothes, and disinfecting surfaces? Turns out that the Coronavirus — the virus responsible for the illness COVID-19 — can live on a variety of surfaces for up to 72 hours.

When the virus is expelled into the atmosphere — via spit droplets expelled from our mouths and noses — “RNA, fatty membrane, and protein … steadily break down in a few hours.” On the other hand, when the virus lands on plastic, steel, or cardboard the virus has higher durability. The virus is able to survive on plastic surfaces around three days, stainless steel is around 5.6 hours, and cardboard has the lowest amount of time, around 24 hours.

While there are many factors that need to be considered — for instance, the laboratory environment was highly regulated including temperature, lighting, and humidity — the results of this study basically reaffirmed “the need to disinfect surfaces — especially those made of plastic and stainless steel … [and the necessity] to wash your hands with soap and water,” regularly.

Safe Grocery Shopping Tips

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When it comes to grocery shopping, there are multiple high-risk factors to take into account. To being, you’ll want to be conscious of person-to-person transmission between you and other shoppers, as well as store workers. Next, keep in mind that there are lots of stainless steel and plastic surfaces in a grocery store, which are long-lasting conductors of the virus. Plus, there are the objects that will be going home with you including food, food packaging, and grocery store bags.

Luckily, there are tons of tips and guidelines to follow to keep yourself and others safe and lower the risk of transmission!

How to Minimize Grocery Store Trips

The first line of attack to keep yourself and others safe is to minimize your shopping trips. By reducing your exposure to the public, you’ll also reduce the risk of contracting or transmitting COVID-19.

• Try to buy foods in bulk! This is super easy for dried foods such as legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds. It’s also a good idea to stock up on high-quality frozen or canned food items to hold you over between trips.
• Opt for a contactless food delivery service. There are a handful of services to choose from depending on where you want to source your groceries. For instance, some companies offer a wide selection of stores to choose from such as Instacart, Shipt, goPuff, Delivery.com, and Amazon Fresh. Others are specific to a store such as Walmart Grocery, Safeway, and Whole Foods (operated through Amazon Fresh). On the other hand, if you’re looking to Support small businesses, focus on organic, or go plant-based, then you can choose a delivery service that does just that such as Hungryroot or Thrive Market. If you’re looking to buy everything in bulk, try out Boxed.
• Get a home veggie garden growing! Now that the weather warming, you can begin planting a vegetable garden. While you’ll have to wait for your veggies to ripen, there are many wonderful benefits that outweigh the waiting game. Home-grown veggies are higher in nutrients, they lack pesticides, they’re more affordable, and, in this COVID-19 atmosphere, they’re much safer. Plus, gardening gets you outside and moving, which is beneficial for your mind and body!

Practicing Safety in the Store

On those infrequent grocery shopping trips, it’s incredibly important to take as many precautions as possible. Luckily, the powers that be — primarily, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — have provided science-based guidelines for running essential errands.

• Plan ahead by timing your trip for slower hours such as first thing in the morning or late at night. If you’re a high-risk individual — “adults 65 or older and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions” — check the store’s website to see if they’re offering special times for you to shop.
• Prepare and protect yourself for germ warfare. Before heading inside, make sure to don a cloth mask that covers your mouth and nose. If you’re a high-risk individual or looking to be uber conscious, you’ll want to consider wearing gloves — with that said, diligent hand sanitizing is just as effective — as well as protective eyewear.
• Disinfect before heading in! Make sure to disinfect the grocery cart or basket with wipes focusing on the handles. Most grocery stores are offering disinfecting wipes at the entrances and exits, but it’s also a great idea to have some wipes stored in your car, along with a small bottle of hand sanitizing gel.
• Once inside, distance yourself from others at least six feet if not more. As more companies take action to help stop the spread of COVID-19, you’ll notice these guidelines being enforced with limited numbers of shoppers allowed in the grocery store at a time. As frustrating and time consuming as it may be, this is a really good thing! 
• While shopping and until you sanitize your hands upon leaving, try your best to not touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. All that prep-work beforehand — hand sanitizing, wearing face masks and gloves, and disinfecting the cart — are pointless if you touch a surface in the store and then rub your nose.
• At checkout, avoid using cash at all times. Instead, opt for touchless payment alternatives — this includes Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, or debit/credit cards with RFID-communication. If you don’t have access to touchless payment and are forced to “handle money, a card, or use a keypad, use hand sanitizer right after paying” and make sure to wipe down your credit card with a disinfectant wipe. Consider keeping a mini-bottle of hand sanitizer and a small packet of wipes in your pocket or purse for these outings.
• Upon leaving the store, remove your gloves, throw them in the trash, and sanitize your hands. It’s a good idea to have a washable mat prepared in the very back or trunk of your car to unload your grocery bags onto. Once groceries are unloaded and the cart is stowed, remove your mask and sanitize your hands again before starting the engine or grabbing the steering wheel.

Unloading and Disinfecting at Home

While it may seem that all of the precautions you took before, during, and after shopping go out the window once you bring groceries into your house, there’s currently no evidence holding up the theory that your groceries are dangerous of contamination.

Per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “there is no evidence to suggest that food produced in the United States or imported from countries affected by COVID-19 can transmit COVID-19.” On top of that, there’s also no evidence that “food, food containers, or food packaging [are] associated with transmission of COVID-19.”

With that said, it is possible that the “virus that causes COVID-19 can survive on surfaces or objects,” therefore it’s important to take a few disinfecting precautions once you return home.

• Remove outerwear first! If you have a garage, a mudroom, a back patio, or enclosed foyer, do your best to remove shoes, jackets, sweaters, hats, and other outerwear before heading inside. If you’re still wearing a mask, eyewear, and gloves, remove those as well. These should go immediately into the laundry or should be placed in a hamper for laundry day.
• Choose a single surface to unpack your groceries. If you use disposable bags, toss them immediately into the trash. This may be the time to consider a contactless, covered trash can? If you use reusable bags, throw them directly into the laundry and wash them immediately.
• Get your food stored and cleaned! While the chance of contracting the virus from food and food packaging is incredibly low, per the CDC, it’s a good idea to take measures to clean food no matter what. Make sure to follow the “4 steps of food safety — clean, separate, cook, and chill.” This involves washing your hands often, — before, during, and after handling food — wash fruits and veggies using water, — don’t use soap, as this can actually cause you to become ill — and refrigerate or freeze your food properly.
• Wash your hands after everything is stored. Give your hands another good go-around with warm water, soap, and at least 20-seconds of scrubbing.
• Perform a final disinfecting cleanse. Using disinfecting wipes, clean the handle of the door you entered from, the surface where your groceries were placed and unpacked, the fridge door handle, and the laundry control panel and door. Make sure to hit up any other surface you touched before unloading the groceries. This final step is especially important for those who are in the high-risk group!

Safe Food Delivery Tips

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While it’s important to stay at home, it doesn’t mean we can’t indulge in our favorite restaurant or lend a helping hand and Support small businesses. In fact, as long as you follow the proper Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, it’s actually perfectly safe to have pre-prepared food delivered. The biggest risk with food delivery is making contact with the delivery person and, after that, it’s contact with food packaging.

• Prepay over the phone or online. Make sure to either pay on the phone or pay online beforehand, including adding a tip! Most businesses still serving the public offer this service.
• Leave food (and extra trash) at the door! Let the person taking your order know that you would like the food left at a “safe spot outside your house (such as your front porch or lobby), with no person-to-person interaction.” If this isn’t an option, keep six feet between you and the delivery person. If there’s an outer bag holding your food, leave this on your doorstep and take the individual containers inside. It’s probably a good idea to invest in a small outdoor trash can that can also be used for mask, gloves, cardboard boxes, and junk mail that doesn’t need to come into the house.
• Bring the food inside and wash your hands. Once the food is in the house, go ahead and give your hands a good wash or use sanitizer. It’s a good idea to always have a bottle right inside the front door!
• Transfer food to plates and wash your hands again. Plate your food, dump the containers in the trash, disinfect the surface where the containers were unloaded, and wash your hands again before eating.
• Use your own utensils and plates! Nix chopsticks, plastic cutlery, napkins, and plates provided by the restaurant and use your own. This is one less disinfecting step you have to worry about!
• Perform a final disinfecting cleanse. Follow the same rules as a grocery shopping trip and clean surfaces you may have touched after collecting your delivery including door handles, countertops, and such.

Safe Takeout and Curbside

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If delivery isn’t an option at one of your favorite restaurants, it’s important to follow many of the same safety guidelines as grocery shopping and food delivery.

• Find a takeout delivery service. If a restaurant doesn’t offer delivery, it’s probably a good bet that you can find a service that will deliver it for you. This includes companies such as Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, Seamless, and Eat 24.
• Prepay over the phone or online. Make sure to either pay on the phone or pay online beforehand, including adding a tip! Most businesses still serving the public offer this service.
• Use contactless payment, if paying in person. If prepayment isn’t an option, follow grocery store rules and use touchless payment alternatives — such as Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, or debit/credit cards with RFID-communication. If you don’t have access to touchless payment and are forced to “handle money, a card, or use a keypad, use hand sanitizer right after paying” and make sure to wipe down your credit card with a disinfectant wipe.
• Prepare and protect yourself and others with gear. Make sure to don a cloth mask that covers your mouth and nose. If you’re a high-risk individual or looking to be uber conscious, you’ll want to consider wearing gloves — with that said, diligent hand sanitizing is just as effective — as well as protective eyewear.
• Remain at least 6 feet from the restaurant workers. Most restaurants are equipped to make this 6-foot distance easily maintained. If not, ask the worker to set payment devices and food on a table or the ground before approaching. Once you’re paid and collected your food, the worker can then collect the payment device and conclude the interaction.
• Secure takeout in the car. Much like groceries, place takeout in the back or trunk area, preferably on a washable mat.

Once you get home, follow the same guidelines you would for food or grocery delivery:

• Remove outerwear first! If you have a garage, a mudroom, a back patio, or enclosed foyer, do your best to remove shoes, jackets, sweaters, hats, and other outerwear before heading inside. If you’re still wearing a mask, eyewear, and gloves, remove those as well. These should go immediately into the laundry or should be placed in a hamper for laundry day.
• Leave the extra bag at the door! If there’s an outer bag holding your food, leave this on your doorstep and take the individual containers inside.
• Bring the food inside and wash your hands. Once the food is in the house, go ahead and give your hands a good wash or use sanitizer. It’s a good idea to always have a bottle right inside the front door!
• Transfer food to plates and wash your hands again. Plate your food, dump the containers in the trash, disinfect the surface where the containers were unloaded, and wash your hands again before eating.
• Use your own utensils and plates! Nix chopsticks, plastic cutlery, napkins, and plates provided by the restaurant and use your own. This is one less disinfecting step you have to worry about!
• Perform a final disinfecting cleanse. Follow the same rules as a grocery shopping trip and clean surfaces you may have touched after collecting your delivery including door handles, countertops, and such.

Learn How to Cook Plant-Based Meals at Home!

Super Simple Veggie Big Mac/One Green Planet

Reducing your meat intake and eating more plant-based foods is known to help with chronic inflammation, heart health, mental wellbeing, fitness goals, nutritional needs, allergies, gut health and more! Dairy consumption also has been linked many health problems, including acne, hormonal imbalance, cancer, prostate cancer and has many side effects.

For those of you interested in eating more plant-based, we highly recommend downloading the Food Monster App — with over 15,000 delicious recipes it is the largest plant-based recipe resource to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy! And, while you are at it, we encourage you to also learn about the environmental and health benefits of a plant-based diet.

Here are some great resources to get you started:

• • Weekly Vegan Meal Plans
• • Plant-Based Health Resources
• • Plant-Based Food & Recipes
• • Plant-Based Nutrition Resources
• • The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition
• • Budget-Friendly Plant-Based Recipes
• • High Protein Plant-Based Recipes
• • Plant-Based Meal Prep

For more Animal, Earth, Life, Vegan Food, Health, and Recipe content published daily, subscribe to the One Green Planet Newsletter! Lastly, being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high quality content. Please consider supporting us by donating!