Lettuce from California's Salinas Valley recalled over E. coli concerns

ap wire ^ | Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006 | ap

[varina davis]

This is getting downright frightening! Read all of it, gets scarier as the story goes on.

[HungarianGypsy]

What kind of lettuce? Iceberg? My co-op just got some green leaf yesterday from the produce house. Don't know where it was shipped from.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Read all of it, gets scarier as the story goes on.

I guess the old fashioned idea of washing all fresh produce before you eat it has gone out of style. Along with basic hygiene and sanitation. Better to grow the government, and have somebody else be responsible. Oh well. Chicken Little was right.

[Rushmore Rocks]

Oh No!

[HungarianGypsy]

The problem with the spinach was supposed to be that washing it wasn't supposed to make a difference. I don't know if that is the case here.

[balch3]

Purely coincidence that all these food safety stories coming out at the same time that Vice Chairman of the Agriculture comittee Richard Pombo is in a tough reelection fight. Couldn't possibly be an attempt to embarass him. /sarcasm.

[The Westerner]

About 7 years ago, a freeper posted a thread about threats to our food supply. He mentioned chicken down in Ark. But he did not want to get too specific about the types of threats that are out there. I never forgot that thread, wouldn't even know how to search for it.

[TomGuy]

We aren't getting the full story of the problem.

The shelf life of fresh vegetables is 2-3 weeks. The contamination problem is in its 3rd month. This should be the 4th-6th generation of produce.

Yet some problem seems to continue.

With the spinach, it was 'known' to be a problem nearly 6 weeks before the recall was made. Yet, new contaminated produce was found nearly a month following that recall. The shelf life of the produce doesn't parallel with the details of the contamination.

[varina davis]

If spinach can be contaminated, then I would think all other produce could be. I'm sticking to V-8 for the time being and only veggies and fruits than can be peeled or pared.

[TomGuy]

I guess the old fashioned idea of washing all fresh produce before you eat it has gone out of style.

The word on the recent spinach contamination was that the bacteria was INside the plant, not on the surface. Thus, additional washing would have had little effect. Cooking was the only means of killing the bacteria.

[TomGuy]

He mentioned chicken down in Ark.

A couple of years ago, there was an outbreak of an unknown pest (fungal or viral or bacterial) that was hitting some wheat fields in KS and IA. AgDept couldn't seem to identify what it was. [I never saw any follow up, so I don't know what the determination was.]

[KylaStarr]

Just great. :(

My climate is favorable for planting greens right now so it sounds like if I want to fix any salads for my family, I had best get busy cleaning up my old garden plot.

After the spinach contamination, where the e-coli was inside the actual plant, washing my greens before eating them isn't going to make me feel any safer.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

The word on the recent spinach contamination was that the bacteria was INside the plant, not on the surface. Thus, additional washing would have had little effect. Cooking was the only means of killing the bacteria.

I heard "the word". I call BS. The cellular membranes of plant material are such that if plants could indeed be organic hosts to E-coli; human life on this planet would cease to exist. Not one independent laboratory published conclusive test results. Many lawyers weighed in with their opinions. If you have a link to the lab reports that showed a conclusive case of plants being "infected" with E-coli, please post it. Contamination and infection are two different things.

[gogeo]

I guess the old fashioned idea of washing all fresh produce before you eat it has gone out of style.

I guess read, think, type has gone out of style...if produce is watered with tainted water, as is suspected in the case of spinach, it can't be washed off, because it's inside the plant. It can only be cooked or discarded.

[Post-Neolithic]

"I guess the old fashioned idea of washing all fresh produce before you eat it has gone out of style."

You cannot wash-out E-Coli, I have also heard on here that you can't cook it out. Some say bleach will work but that you should not use it all the time.

[Rushmore Rocks]

Lucky you. We're supposed to get snow tomorrow.

[Arizona Carolyn]

When you hire illegals and then don't provide outhouses (or enough in the right location) what do they expect? I have friends who got e-coli from cantalope... people don't think about the skin contaminating the fruit when you cut into it.

[Westlander]

Only frost at night here. Regarding the lettuce/spinach--leave that crap to the rabbits.

[Arizona Carolyn]

I don't think just cooking; from waht I read some babies got sick off spinich babyfood.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

OH!Why does'nt somebody have the guts to say what this really is?Its illegals that are intentionally doing this because things are'nt going the way they want.This is clearly an act of terrorism and an example should be made.