
How salad became a major source of food poisoning in the US - curtis
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/26/17282378/romaine-lettuce-recall-ecoli-yuma
======
gregable
Keep things in perspective though.

That article mentions 3,000 people per year die from food poisoning, and leafy
vegetables are the cause of 1/4 of that, or 750 deaths/year.

However, heart disease alone causes 610,000 deaths per year
([https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm)).
"Individuals who ate more than 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per had
roughly a 20 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease"
([https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-
you...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-
eat/vegetables-and-fruits/)). 20% of 610,000 = 122,000/year. That the heart
disease risk reduction is 162x more significant than the food poisoning risk
increase, should be more than enough to outweigh the risk of food poisoning.

However, and less clear, there is also evidence that leafy green vegetables
protect against diabetes, cancer, dementia, and Alzheimer's.

~~~
toasterlovin
Just keep in mind that epidemiology is fundamentally not able to tell you
anything about positive causation.

In this case, individuals who eat more that 5 servings of fruits and
vegetables probably also exhibit a whole host of behaviors that contribute to
this outcome. Essentially, they are not a representative sample of the
population at large, but rather a sub-group who is "healthful" in a whole
bunch of ways.

~~~
gregable
I fully concede this (and jacobolus's) point. I'm not a health researcher
either, so don't take my word for any of this.

Building a double-blind clinical trial regarding changing people's diets over
their lifetime and observing cardiovascular mortality is very hard.

Some clinical studies do exist, but they are usually looking over shorter
terms and at heart disease risk factors rather than mortality. These show
similar results:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16368299](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16368299)
\- Systolic blood pressure decreased from 144 (SE +/\- 1.1) to 134 mm Hg (SE
+/\- 2, P < .001), and diastolic blood pressure decreased from 87.4 (SE +/\-
1.2) to 83.4 mm Hg (SE +/\- 1.2, P < .05) from tomato extract.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26328470](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26328470)
\- In the subgroup of hypertensives, quercetin (onion skin extract) decreased
24 h systolic BP by -3·6 mmHg (P=0·022) when compared with placebo (mean
treatment difference, -3·9 mmHg; P=0·049).

Many of the epidemiological studies also adjust for many of the features that
you might look for. For example
[https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/30/1/130/619054](https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/30/1/130/619054)
adjusts for "age, randomized treatment, body mass index (BMI), smoking,
alcohol intake, physical activity, history of diabetes, history of
hypertension, history of high cholesterol, and use of multivitamins" and comes
to the same conclusion.

~~~
toasterlovin
> Building a double-blind clinical trial regarding changing people's diets
> over their lifetime and observing cardiovascular mortality is very hard.

But it is the _only_ diet research that can actually generate knowledge.

The studies you cite are nice and all, but the first two are for studies that
measured outcomes after 6-8 _weeks_. If you assume an average lifespan of 70
years, the longest study represented ~1/450th of a human lifespan. And, as you
mention, they only measure what we think are valid indicators, not actual
outcomes! And the third study may control for all of the things you mention,
but it doesn't control for the other foods the study participants ate!

Really the only piece of information that you need to know regarding red meat
is that public health messaging for the last _50 years_ has been that people
should limit red meat intake. And it was successful. According to this[0], red
meat consumption has decreased from 133lbs per person in 1965 to 107lbs per
person in 2016. But it is during this exact same time period that the obesity
epidemic came into existence. So, perhaps red meat is marginally bad for you,
but it is almost certainly not cause of all of the various afflictions that we
think are caused in some way by our diets.

[0]: [https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-
industry/st...](https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-
industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-
estimated-2012-in-pounds/)

~~~
gregable
> But it is the only diet research that can actually generate knowledge.

> The studies you cite are nice and all, but the first two are for studies
> that measured outcomes after 6-8 weeks. If you assume an average lifespan of
> 70 years, the longest study represented ~1/450th of a human lifespan. And,
> as you mention, they only measure what we think are valid indicators, not
> actual outcomes! And the third study may control for all of the things you
> mention, but it doesn't control for the other foods the study participants
> ate!

I fully agree with everything you wrote about the science here.

However, many of the epidemiological studies are over very large populations
and time periods, so it's not as though the body of evidence consists of a 6-8
week studies. And honestly the fact that the effects are so strong in such a
short period of time strengthen the argument in some ways.

> Really the only piece of information that you need to know regarding red
> meat is that public health messaging for the last 50 years has been that
> people should limit red meat intake. And it was successful. According to
> this, red meat consumption has decreased from 133lbs per person in 1965 to
> 107lbs per person in 2016. But it is during this exact same time period that
> the obesity epidemic came into existence. So, perhaps red meat is marginally
> bad for you, but it is almost certainly not cause of all of the various
> afflictions that we think are caused in some way by our diets.

Interesting response. I never claimed that meat was bad, only that leafy
vegetables were good. I find it almost incredible that your argument against
the nutritional value of leafy vegetables is that there aren't enough double
blind clinical trials, and then your defense of red meat uses a time
correlation that doesn't adjust for any confounding variables at all. It also
cites a document from an meat industry group. If you look at USDA numbers
([https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-availability-
per...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-availability-per-capita-
data-system/interactive-charts-and-highlights/)), overall meat consumption has
been consistently and slowly rising, however beef is being replaced with
chicken, so yes _red_ meat consumption is declining.

~~~
toasterlovin
> However, many of the epidemiological studies are over very large populations
> and time periods, so it's not as though the body of evidence consists of a
> 6-8 week studies. And honestly the fact that the effects are so strong in
> such a short period of time strengthen the argument in some ways.

The studies all tell us nothing about the long term implications of diet. The
long study tells us nothing because it is purely correlational. The short
studies tell us nothing because they are not measuring the thing we care about
(long term health outcomes). You can't somehow generate knowledge by combining
two types of studies which each are incapable of generating knowledge about
the thing we care about.

> I never claimed that meat was bad, only that leafy vegetables were good.

Yeah, I clearly was hallucinating. Nowhere did you mention red meat. And yet I
rambled on about it for a paragraph. :-) Sorry!

But:

> I find it almost incredible that your argument against the nutritional value
> of leafy vegetables is that there aren't enough double blind clinical
> trials, and then your defense of red meat uses a time correlation that
> doesn't adjust for any confounding variables at all.

That's because correlation cannot demonstrate causation, but it can
demonstrate the lack of causation. It's all about confounding variables, as
you point out. If you have two trend lines which correlate, there can always
be a third, unmeasured variable which is actually causing the two measured
variables. However, if you have trend lines which do not correlate, then the
only way they can be related is by some extremely convoluted chain of
causation. Which, I guess, is technically possible, but rapidly approaches 0
probability.

In other words, epidemiology is very useful for narrowing the possibly
explanations for some phenomena, and it can suggest places where we should
continue focusing our attention, but it can't actually tell us if we've found
the right culprit.

~~~
AstralStorm
Correlation cannot demonstrate lack of causation, only lack of linear dose
response. (Incl. Multivariate)

Any nonlinear enough process will show with wrong low correlations.

Suppose the process is stepwise - silly sample hypothesis, eating over x grams
meat a day is harmful. It is binary. Correlation is meaningless for such a
process. You have to use significantly more powerful statistic tools. Logistic
regression will somewhat work for such a process for instance if the boundary
is somewhat fuzzy. (You can put exact mathematical bound on how fuzzy.)

To extend it for multivariate analysis you get to use such complex tools as
nonlinear ICA. (Instead of CCA and PCA for linear.)

~~~
toasterlovin
I’m using the wrong terminology, I’m certain, but what I’m getting at is that
observational (which is probably what I mean instead of correlational) studies
can negate a hypothesis, but they can never prove one. So, one hypothesis is
that red meat consumption leads to heart disease. If the data shows the trend
lines of heart disease and red meat consumption going in opposite directions,
then you know your hypothesis is wrong. But if the trend lines are going in
the same direction, the hypothesis hasn’t been proven; all you know is that it
is a _potential_ explanation.

Now, it may be that there is a different relationship, like the one that you
mention: that eating more than X grams per day is harmful. The data from an
observational study can negate this hypothesis (if there is no threshold
pattern evident in the data), but it cannot prove the hypothesis. All it can
do, at best, is let you know that the hypothesis _might_ be true.

~~~
AstralStorm
Observational studies can be post- interventional and in this case can prove
or not a hypothesis that a certain widespread intervention was successful.

This is very rare and hard to run, so more direct interventional short term
studies are used more often.

Suppose a certain country believed an observational study pointing that eating
more than certain amount of sugar is harmful (suppose backed by other
evidence). They instated hard tax and limit on sugar in foods as an
intervention. After some time a big observational study is ran and it is
assessed if the intervention brought results.

This is precisely what observational studies (follow up) should do. Not really
try to find hypotheses - these need more direct evidence.

~~~
toasterlovin
Yeah, but if there is an intervention, then it is not purely an observational
study. The big problem with nutrition science is that most of the long term
studies are purely observational. There is no intervention at all. All they
are measuring is how certain observed measurements correlate (or not) with
other observed measurements. These are the types of studies I'm talking about.

------
jonnycoder
Hydroponic lettuce is simply the easiest thing I've grown. I'm surprised I
don't see it mentioned more often. I bought an Agrobrite 4 bulb T5 light on
Amazon that runs 216watts. The math works out to $15/month if running 16 hours
a day. It takes about 2-3 weeks for the 9 seeds to start, but I was swimming
in lettuce in no time. It tastes excellent too. Search for Jeb Gardner on
youtube for some entertaining lettuce videos grown in an office environment.

~~~
mythrwy
Seems like Mesculan type greens would work well with that setup. Can harvest
in a little over a month (well outdoors, I don't know with that light but
maybe similar).

It's mixed type greens, mustards, lettuce etc. Cut when leaves are about the
size of the business part of a spoon. Cut it so it comes back and you can get
3 or 4 cuttings per planting. Plant it successively (i.e every week or two
plant another section) so it's constantly available.

Faster to harvest, more sustained harvest, and it tastes better than lettuce
because you can put little greens like collards and arugula in the mix.
Indoors you'd avoid the insect troubles that plague these tiny greens outside
as well.

~~~
mikekchar
The other cool thing about this is that you can let one go to seed and you
will be swimming in seeds as well (though it's tricky to manage the light
height because the flower stalk is quite tall).

Hydroponics are not just great for food, they are awesome for people suffering
from lack of light exposure in winter months. When I lived in Canada, I used
to put a 4 foot long plant stand with fluorescent daylight bulbs along each
wall of my apartment. I can't remember how long I had the light timer set for
(probably 14 hours). It's incredible the difference. These days you can get
creative with various LED solutions and probably do even better.

------
dlwdlw
One interesting thing ive noticed about chinese culture are the heuristics
around cleanliness. Vegetables are always washed vigorously and cooked. Salads
and sandwiches and other raw-like things are rather disliked. Hands are washed
after petting dogs/cats. Slippers always worn around the house. Dislike of
carpets. Windows opened every morning for fresh air. Other random stuff.

The safety heuristics cant be delegated to a larger system as one doesn't
exists so individual households maintain this knowledge and many of them turn
into habitual preference.

~~~
fma
I remember watching TV growing up... Full house or whatever family sitcom. The
kids laid the bed with their shoes on, school clothes. My mom comments on how
dirty that is.

Additionaly it seems like only textbook are Americans using paper towels to
open bathroom doors after washing their hands. My mom instilled that at a
young age (I'm 36 now). Now it irritates me to see a Dyson hand dryer, and
have to open the bathroom door by pulling it.

~~~
interfixus
From a European perspective, I so often notice this in American movies.
Everybody constantly with shoes in beds an sofas, apparently without a
thought. Always grosses me out - it simply would not ever _occur_ to me to put
my shoes on furniture.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Even when I'm completely black out, shitfaced drunk, I still manage to pull my
shoes off before falling onto my bed.

The one time I couldn't manage to get my boots off, I just sort of awkwardly
slept with my legs hanging over the edge of the bed.

~~~
markdown
But you wore them right up to your bed, not taking them off at the door? :O

~~~
toomanybeersies
I have wooden floors, so I'm not too concerned about wearing shoes inside.

~~~
talmand
This chain has made me curious; has there been any study of the negative
health consequences of people's behavior with shoes within their living space?
I'm not aware of any health concerns (major or minor) over such a thing.

For example, if such things were a worry then I'd be more concerned over my
dog's bare paws while outside and his nonchalant attitude of not wiping them
as he comes inside.

------
djrogers
That’s it - I’m going back to outsourcing all of my leafy greens consumption.
I’ll let the cattle and swine eat it for me, then I’ll eat them!

~~~
fitzroy
Digestion as a Service.

~~~
throwaway82729
Uber for Digestion

------
ransom1538
Not to be graphic here, but when they are picking lettuce _where_ the portable
bathroom is - is important. These guys are pushed for time -- and if the potty
is too far away...

Also, to deal with this, some farms have movable portable bathrooms on wheels
that hover over the produce or in between and follow the group, I am sure they
leak.

[https://toddbigelow.photoshelter.com/image/I0000BLSwooXCRac](https://toddbigelow.photoshelter.com/image/I0000BLSwooXCRac)

~~~
DanAndersen
This is an important part of the equation, and it's unfortunate that the
article doesn't go into sufficient detail about the actual mechanisms by which
the infection can happen. If anything, the article's mentions of "people are
simply eating more fresh produce these days" and "some contamination can still
slip through" foster an attitude of helplessness, as if this is a new normal
we need to get used to.

Poor living and working conditions for migrant farmworkers is a contributing
factor to outbreaks like this. Workers who are present illegally or are
otherwise marginalized and taken advantage of, even if they are part of legal
guest-worker programs, suffer conditions where poor housing facilities or the
need to work under great time pressures leads to inadequate sanitation.

A 2017 story [0] illustrates this:

>Kristina Espinoza, a labor department investigator who recently visited the
farm, described a "makeshift labor camp" that was "dangerous" and
"unsanitary," according to court documents. [...] Gonzalez had workers shower
in nine stalls inside a cargo container; there was no functional sewage
system, so wastewater accumulated underneath the container, Espinoza said. The
electrical cord used to light the facility was exposed to standing water,
posing a risk of electrocution, according to court documents. The workers
shared one toilet in the trailer and had access to port-a-potties.

[0] [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-farmworker-
abuse-20170...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-farmworker-
abuse-20170510-story.html)

~~~
extrapickles
Not only that, but farmers need to sterilize sewage before using it as
fertilizer. Some will claim they do this, and then pocket the difference.

------
aphextron
>Instead of shipping heads of lettuce or large carrot sticks that people wash,
we chop them and mix them up in processing, then package them in plastic bags.
In that process, Marler said, “The bacteria has a chance to grow. And a lot of
people get sick.”

This confirms what I had always been suspicious of. Those prepackaged veggies
sitting in plastic bags are just a few degrees of temperature away from being
perfect bacterial breeding grounds. Don't ever buy that crap.

~~~
Alupis
Or... rinse it before you eat it.

Just because it's already chopped and in a bag doesn't mean it suddenly
doesn't need rinsing.

If I recall, not rinsing pre-chopped lettuce was one of the things pointed out
to Chipotle after their recent debacle, that may have helped avoid making
customers sick.

~~~
brians
E coli don't rinse off; they form a biofilm with significant adhesion. You
have to cook them to kill them.

~~~
goldenkey
Once I found out about biofilms from the cat fountain I built from NSF silver
infused antimicrobial tubing, I never can look at plumbing piping the same.
Biofilm formed even on the parts that should have been impervious. Even areas
where water is constantly running and splashing. First the minerals deposit on
the antimicrobial surfaces, and then the bacteria attach and film.

I had always thought that constant high pressure water usage would flush
whatever crap is in a pipe. Preventing any real contamination. Well...a quick
google search shows that biofilm on residential water pipes is a huge problem.
High pressure activity does not eliminate biofilm...of course stagnant water
is more of an issue...

~~~
smallnamespace
You probably don't want to know how we filter our water then [1]:

"Slow sand filters work through the formation of a gelatinous layer (or
biofilm) called the hypogeal layer or Schmutzdecke in the top few millimetres
of the fine sand layer."

Treating all bacteria as the enemy is really solving the wrong problem — the
question is not how to kill all the bacteria (which is impossible, from almost
thermodynamic considerations (if there is free energy and the ability for life
colonize it, then there will be life)), but how to manage the bacteria so we
favor nonpathogenic or useful species and help them outcompete the 'bad'
bacteria.

Incidentally, this is the same strategy our own bodies use—the immune system
spends enormous amounts of effort discriminating between commensal/mutual and
pathogenic species, and favoring the former as much trying to outright kill
the latter.

We need to pick the right analogies. How to herd, tame, and recruit allies,
not just how to fight and kill.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_sand_filter#Method_of_ope...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_sand_filter#Method_of_operation)

------
projektir
I don't know why people in this thread are asking how you avoid this. You
don't have to. It's not a huge amount. Things have risks, and that's OK.

------
ryanworl
If anyone has even a passing interest in food safety from a scientific or
academic perspective, the Food Safety Talk podcast is fantastic. The lawyer
quoted in the article is friends with the two hosts.

[http://foodsafetytalk.com/](http://foodsafetytalk.com/)

------
panarky
So what can the salad eater do to be safe?

Some pathogens can't be washed off. Others can if you scrub, but not if you
rinse.

If you buy the whole head, pathogens can hide in the core. And if you buy pre-
cut bagged salad, how can you wash that?

What if you drench the salad in vinegar before eating it, will that kill E.
coli O157:H7?

~~~
TheCapn
What I've heard (and I'm only citing unverified word of mouth) is that E.Coli
is within the leaf itself, it comes from the water it used. You cannot wash it
off or clean it. An infected head of lettuce is garbage.

~~~
panarky
Ugh.

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/011406710037678...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01140671003767834)

Skip down to the section on "Internalization of bacteria into deeper plant
tissues"

------
bluGill
Not mentioned is that organic farming doesn't allow irradiation which would
kill e-coli. Everybody looks for organic foods thinking they are better but
the truth is organic doesn't mean either.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
In what way would irradiation make a food not-organic? I believe you, it seems
stupid enough to be true.

~~~
gowld
USDA rules aside, how would you define "organic". It's a rather ... synthetic
concept to begin with.

~~~
brians
Produced using processes that we've tested for centuries. We're not sure they
work, but we're sure they're not ridiculously dangerous. Contrast glyphosate.

~~~
gruez
>Produced using processes that we've tested for centuries. We're not sure they
work, but we're sure they're not ridiculously dangerous.

There's a bunch of stuff that we "tested for centuries" and thought were
safe... until they weren't. see: lead, smoking, asbestos, cured meats.

~~~
John_KZ
You can still buy all of these things if you want. They come with the
appropriate labeling. I'm sorry if your concern is purely linguistic, but
"organic" isn't a reserved word. Benzol is organic too. Organic laws are a
thing too. Different kinds of organic.

Some people want to eat the same way people ate for millennia. Good for them.
It's one of the benefits of living in a free market society. People have
mistakenly thought a lot of things to be safe or dangerous, but if something
has been working for thousands of years, even imperfectly, it carries a
guarantee nobody else can provide.

Finally I don't understand why people are so angry at organic produce. I
rarely buy it too, but what's the big deal? It sounds like they need to prove
something. I don't get it.

~~~
gruez
>but if something has been working for thousands of years, even imperfectly,
it carries a guarantee nobody else can provide.

my point is that the guarantee is a very weak one, and one based on tradition
rather than facts. something being used for thousands of years merely means it
doesn't cause harm in small enough timescales so that people can associate it
with the effects. see: smoking, which is dangerously poisonous, but the
effects are on such long timescales that its negative effects are dissociated
from it.

>Finally I don't understand why people are so angry at organic produce. I
rarely buy it too, but what's the big deal? It sounds like they need to prove
something. I don't get it.

I guess the anger is directed to both the people that are gullible enough to
buy it and continue to perpetuate the myth that it's somehow better, and the
companies pushing organic produce (by exploiting said ignorance, and
perpetuating said ignorance as a way to sell high margin produce)

~~~
John_KZ
>my point is that the guarantee is a very weak one, and one based on tradition
rather than facts.

This is incredibly wrong. The guarantee is based 100% on facts. This is
literally the only thing it's based on. No assumptions about mechanisms and
correlations. Just facts.

You then proceed to explain how if something can bypass this method of testing
it's only causing mild, low-level symptoms on large timescales. This is a much
better guarantee than a paper published on nature. For me at least, because
this is an opinion. You're free to be wrong, just as I am. Time shows who's
gullible and who's not.

~~~
gruez
>This is incredibly wrong. The guarantee is based 100% on facts. This is
literally the only thing it's based on. No assumptions about mechanisms and
correlations. Just facts.

You're throwing around the word "fact" a little too liberally. "people did _x_
for thousands of years" is a fact, but it's not a guarantee of safety. " _x_
is safe because people used it for thousands of years" is a guarantee of
safety based on your opinion, but it's not a fact.

>You then proceed to explain how if something can bypass this method of
testing it's only causing mild, low-level symptoms on large timescales. This
is a much better guarantee than a paper published on nature.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you accepting that harmful
substances that cause mild, low-level symptoms can "fly under the radar" of
"the test of time"? Or are you saying that the fact something is used for a
long time is automatically a better proof of safety to you than a study
published in nature?

------
rdtsc
> Leafy vegetables were also the second most common cause of food poisoning-
> related hospitalizations.

I never quite got to like lettuce. I don't know why people like it. It just
doesn't have much taste, its leaves are too big, so have to shove them in
awkwardly.

I'd rather have a salad with chopped ripe tomatoes, onions / chives,
cucumbers, cabbage, etc. Even with those, I often wonder if people don't eat
more veggies because American veggies from grocery store taste like plastic.
So eating them is a chore, because well, it's "healthy" but not because they
taste good.

~~~
koolba
Salad is an excuse to eat dressing.

~~~
adrr
Thats like saying french fries are an excuse for eating ketchup or other
condiment. You would never eat/drink salad dressing by itself.

~~~
eigenstuff
Have you ever had woodstock dressing, tho? Because I was just thinking to
myself for the millionth time earlier today about how I would TOTALLY drink a
glass of it/eat it as a soup if it wasn't, y'know, 100 calories for 2
tablespoons or whatever.

Sorry not sorry.

(Annie's makes it but it's almost impossible to find in stores, so here's the
recipe if you're a fan of umami flavors:
[https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-
detail.asp?recipe=698...](https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-
detail.asp?recipe=698649) )

------
contingencies
The solution is clearly automation. Less humans, higher reliability processes,
better tracking of environmental factors (humidity, temperature, etc.) and
time in storage/transit. Faster and more modern supply chains with faster and
higher reliability unit processes mean lower risks. The area is evolving: for
example there has been a shift in Europe from chlorine washes to washing with
ozone or ozonated water as well as increased use of UVC. It seems the rest of
the world is yet to catch up. In the US
[https://omidyar.com/](https://omidyar.com/) recently funded
[http://safetraces.com/](http://safetraces.com/) ... we actually reached out
to them this week but haven't heard back at all. I suspect high impact large
scale improvements may be popularized in China with European technology.

------
athenot
> _Marler also blames Americans’ love of convenience for the problem. “Mass-
> produced chopped, bagged lettuce that gets shipped around the US amplifies
> the risk of poisoning,” he said._

> _Instead of shipping heads of lettuce or large carrot sticks that people
> wash, we chop them and mix them up in processing, then package them in
> plastic bags. In that process, Marler said, “The bacteria has a chance to
> grow. And a lot of people get sick.”_

So it's not just the lettuce heads that get contaminated, it's how they are
processed. This is reminiscent of the issues with large meat packing plants.

I've often wondered what effect that processing has on lettuce. Personally I
prefer to buy a head and clean it myself because it tends to last a lot longer
than a bag that's usually full of consendate and mashed onto the shelves by
store employees, bruising half the contents...

~~~
RandomInteger4
That's something I think about when buying mushrooms as well; there's the
chopped mushrooms, and then there's the whole mushrooms, and the former always
looks kind of worse for ware so to speak, as if the chopping process transmits
bacteria from the blades to the mushrooms.

I buy the whole mushrooms for that reason and simply because they're cheaper.

~~~
moate
It's less bacteria and more general oxidation. They're not more dangerous,
just less pretty (also likely less nutritious since many nutrients are
destroyed by oxidation)

------
PaulAJ
Sounds like the main take-away from this is that you should stick to "whole"
vegetables, and avoid bags of chopped and sliced veg.

------
tzakrajs
The reason vegetables are poisonous is because of the animal waste that is
being used to grow plants. If there wasn't such a huge livestock industry,
people wouldn't be using their excrement for fertilizer and our plants would
be safer.

~~~
op00to
It’s not animal waste. It’s human waste.

~~~
georgebarnett
Its both. Runoff from factory farms is a serious issue.

------
gshakir
In South Asian countries, veggies are cooked throughly and that has brought
out some exciting dishes. Eating uncooked food is always a risk.

~~~
petre
You can also steam them if you don't want the taste to fade away by boiling or
frying. But I always appreciate a good curry.

~~~
vkou
Steaming salad ruins the texture, in my opinion.

~~~
petre
Not salad. Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, peas, zuchini etc. Stuff that you
don't normally put in your salad.

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didibus
Okay, so how do I lower my risks?

Should I stop buying pre-washed? Should I buy local?

I like my salads, how do I get it safely on my plate?

~~~
Fomite
Don't treat pre-washed as pre-washed. Wash it again.

~~~
superdaniel
This is actually not recommended:

 _And while the C.D.C. recommends washing all produce with water, including
heads of lettuce, it does not recommend washing other forms of bagged lettuce,
which has already been washed before bagging. “Your chances of contaminating
it in your kitchen” — with contaminants that may already be on your kitchen
countertop, hands or elsewhere — “are actually higher than if you didn’t wash
the salad greens,” notes Dr. Gieraltowski._

source: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/well/eat/romaine-
lettuce-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/well/eat/romaine-lettuce-
salad-food-poisoning-e-coli.html)

~~~
Fomite
That's interesting. I get the opposite answer from most of the people I know
who work in food-borne infectious diseases.

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didibus
_We really haven’t seen kale and some of the other greens [with contamination]
problems, at least not yet_

Okay, so which green counts? All I eat are spinach, kale, arugula, bok choy
and the likes. The article seems really lacking in details.

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2muchcoffeeman
What does ‘coring lettuce’ mean? Cutting out what we know as a head of
lettuce?

Are they saying that once the e.coli is trapped it can start spreading inside
the lettuce?

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_nalply
I really wonder what's the problem. Either the factory or the restaurant
washes the salad for you or you do it yourself.

Here in an European country I can buy pre-washed salad like sliced sugarloaf
or lettuce. I toss this directly on my plate and chow away. It's more
expensive, but it's convenient and probably safe. I trust the shop to sell me
good quality.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm loving this whole debate. People have eaten unwashed food for millennia.
Now all of a sudden our food is only safe to eat if it's been sterilised with
radiation!?

~~~
speedplane
True, but a millennia ago, you'd be lucky to make it to 30. I think we have
higher standards by now.

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lifeisstillgood
It's notable that "fish and shellfish just 6 percent."

I suspect the reason is simple - we distrust shellfish preparation, and take
extra care.

With salads ... I mean yesterday I tipped a bag of salad into a bowl, stuck
some dressing on an ate it.

Either salad bag makers are going to go the extra mile with "Washed in frozen
nitrogen by astronauts for your safety" or the industry is dead.

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davidw
Be curious how the US compares to Europe. We often ate packaged salads there
for the convenience factor, so it's not like everyone is lovingly hand-washing
their artisanal lettuce leaves ...

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eecc
3000 victims/year?! When is the POTUS addressing the Nation to launch a War on
Food? Someone must end this carnage of innocents at the hand of terrorist
salads!

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Double_a_92
Why do people even eat salad (lettuce)? It tastes awful unless you drown it in
sauce...

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jp57
tl;dr— people eat more salads now.

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lainga
tl;dr from 3rd section: salad became a major source of food in the US.

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Dowwie
Pass on lettuce and try lacinato kale

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staunch
I think most citizens would support a blanket fine of $1 million for every
CDC-verified victim. It would help the victims and possibly eliminate the
problem.

