Multistate Outbreak of E. Coli O157:H7 Infections Linked to Romaine Lettuce

[troydavis]

https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-04-18/index.html

[teslabox]

About 90% of the United States' supply of lettuce in the winter comes from Yuma, Arizona [0].

I think it more appropriate for most people to eat seasonally-appropriate vegetables during the winter months, than to get a little lettuce from thousands of miles away. Winter squash, carrots, apples, and many other food products store very well in root cellars [1].

[0] http://www.visityuma.com/agritourism.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar

[craftyguy → teslabox]

How many people have root cellars? I'd guess it's a pretty small number of residences (e.g. definitely not folks in apartments).

[teslabox → craftyguy]

Root cellars can be built anywhere food is grown. The Wikipedia page has pictures of very large buildings.

My point is that it's more efficient to eat locally-stored produce than to ship lettuce from Yuma to Maine in the winter.

[brandon272]

How does this happen at wide spread scale? I understand that situations occur where birds could track in disease by landing in growing areas but it seems like a more substantial contamination to cause this many infections.