Less than a week after the government called off its spinach scare, there's more green leafy stuff to keep off your plate. A California lettuce grower is voluntarily recalling 8,500 cartons of its "Foxy" brand green leaf lettuce after initial reports of E.coli contamination -- not on the lettuce itself, but in the water used to irrigate it. No one's reported getting sick, and almost all the lettuce has been pulled. But there are still 200-300 cartons shipped Oct. 3-6 that are unaccounted for. It's believed to affect mostly western states, but some may have been shipped to restaurants around the country.
Let's put this in perspective. Unlike the tainted spinach -- which sickened almost 200 people and killed three -- the FDA doesn't seem overly concerned yet about the lettuce recall. There's not even a mention on their web site. And a spokeswoman said it's standard procedure for the company to deal with it.
This is so sad. I love my veggies! A warm spinach salad... a crisp Cobb - mmm! And those prewashed, bagged greens are so convenient. This lettuce came from the same area as the tainted spinach. I hope it's a coincidence, or an isolated problem --
because otherwise I may have to contribute to the obesity epidemic and start eating (gasp!) fried foods for lunch!
News Mom T
2 comments:
Remember, most E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks in the last few years have been linked to LETTUCE consumption. In fact, in a letter written to the spinach and lettuce industry last year, Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D.. Director Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition warned that the "FDA is aware of 18 outbreaks of foodborne illness since 1995 caused by Escherichia coli O157:H7 for which fresh or fresh-cut lettuce was implicated as the outbreak vehicle. In one additional case, fresh-cut spinach was implicated. These 19 outbreaks account for approximately 409 reported cases of illness and two deaths. Although tracebacks to growers were not completed in all 19 outbreak investigations, completed traceback investigations of eight of the outbreaks associated with lettuce and spinach, including the most recent lettuce outbreak in Minnesota, were traced back to Salinas, California. See full letter at:http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/prodltr2.html
Thanks, Bill. In fact, I do recall while covering the spinach issue that FDA had previously mounted a big effort to strengthen its oversight of lettuce, but that did not include spinach - until now.
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