Spinach outbreak culprit

here is a lenghty article from forbes magazine that is throwing some light on it , but nothing definete yet .
from the article :
"It's unclear how the contaminated fecal matter could have been transported to the field, but investigators are not ruling anything out. It could have been wandering livestock, substandard worker hygiene, irrigation practices or even wild boar, officials said "

...CONTAMINATED PRODUCE...

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That earlier article (thus the second one in the recent post) mentioned several cattle raising areas and lots of runoff situations. Granted, runoff may or may not be the cause of the present mess, but I'm thinking of site engineering solutions... regrading certain areas to intercept the flow. All expensive, of course.

Wild hogs/boar are a problem in many states. Their feet would be carriers, if not they themselves. Then there's humans... and trucks.

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Without a doubt, regardless of the cause, I'm not eating spinach for a long, long time.

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we've noticed that lately containers of leaf lettuce and spinach sold here carry an extra - and quite vivid - sticker saying : CANADA .

i've always liked spinach but for the time being : thanks , but no thanks !

we've switched to hydroponically grown local lettuce now .

i feel sorry for the california farmers who are being hurt hard , i understand - but for the time being ... thanks !
hbg

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we've noticed that lately containers of leaf lettuce and spinach sold here carry an extra - and quite vivid - sticker saying : CANADA .

i've always liked spinach but for the time being : thanks , but no thanks !

we've switched to hydroponically grown local lettuce now .

i feel sorry for the california farmers who are being hurt hard , i understand - but for the time being ... thanks !
hbg

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we've noticed that lately containers of leaf lettuce and spinach sold here carry an extra - and quite vivid - sticker saying : CANADA .

i've always liked spinach but for the time being : thanks , but no thanks !

we've switched to hydroponically grown local lettuce now .

i feel sorry for the california farmers who are being hurt hard , i understand - but for the time being ... thanks !
hbg

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HELP !!!
can't we remove a double-post anymore ? Sad

hbg

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hamburger wrote:

we've noticed that lately containers of leaf lettuce and spinach sold here carry an extra - and quite vivid - sticker saying : CANADA .

i've always liked spinach but for the time being : thanks , but no thanks !

we've switched to hydroponically grown local lettuce now .

i feel sorry for the california farmers who are being hurt hard , i understand - but for the time being ... thanks !
hbg

But where was it, before CANADA?

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the place of origin is usually in very small letters on the label - you would do well to bring a magnifying glass to read it !
it's like seeing one of the TV ads for a loan company ; i usually can't read the fine script at the bottom of the ad - it also usually flashes by quickly .

so the packers must have figured out quickly that unless they can draw the consumers attention to it with a large sticker , shoppers would just bypass it - that's what we certainly did until the stickers appeared and we read the fine print telling us that it came from canadian growers - mostly from greenhouses in the leamington/windsor area.

just to feel a littler safer , we are sticking with locally grown (hydroponic) lettuce for now .
hope it works .
hbg

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s.f. newspaper reports :
"Out of nine outbreaks of E. coli food poisoning traced to spinach or lettuce from the Salinas Valley since 1995, this is the first in which investigators have been able to link the bacteria strain that caused the illness to a farm where greens were grown. Reilly stressed that the test results do not prove that the manure was responsible for the outbreak and that investigators are continuing to look at other potential sources. "

so it seems that this contamination isn't that rare ?
who knows how many times it wasn't even traced back ?
bye , bye , spinach - are carrots safe (before they are being juiced) ?
hbg

...E COLI AND SPINACH...

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Wow and I love my greens so much.

They took away the spinach from my local subway.

This whole thing gives vegies a bad name.

How unfortunate, when raw veggies are so important to maintaining a healthy body.

Shouldn't animal farms be kept down river and down wind from veggie farms anyway?

I am posting this article for those who did not get it the first time.

An interesting part in this article is the "dead zone" in the gulf of Mexico from steer feces emptying out from the polluted mississippi river.

http://www.nehbc.org/pollan1.html

It is a long read but well worth the time.

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ontario grocery stores have placed large signs next to the lettuce and spinach displays : "this product was grown in canada" .
still a little concerned about spinach , but we are buying 'hydroponic' lettuce . there is much less waste with that kind of lettuce . even though it's a little more expensive than california lettuce (about 85 c for bagged and usually $ 1.49 for lettuce in a plastic box) , i imagine we'll be sticking with the locally grown lettuce for now - just bought california cauliflower yesterday :wink: - it'll be cooked , so shoulld be o.k. i guess :wink: .
hbg

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hamburger wrote:

ontario grocery stores have placed large signs next to the lettuce and spinach displays : "this product was grown in canada" .
still a little concerned about spinach , but we are buying 'hydroponic' lettuce . there is much less waste with that kind of lettuce . even though it's a little more expensive than california lettuce (about 85 c for bagged and usually $ 1.49 for lettuce in a plastic box) , i imagine we'll be sticking with the locally grown lettuce for now - just bought california cauliflower yesterday :wink: - it'll be cooked , so shoulld be o.k. i guess :wink: .
hbg

It is conceivably a shame that local infrastructure, growers and bartering have been replaced by mass farming.

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new findings..

washington post article

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ossobuco wrote:

new findings..

washington post article

Fox News reported that yesterday,

I should have tracked down the link, I got distracted.

Thanks for doing the leg work. Smile

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Not conclusive for this episode, but still disturbing...

to me very disturbing.

I love California, love all that land in there.

Hate the idea of all this going down to aquifers (while not knowing of how all that would play out).

Have read, though, trying to be neutral here since I really don't know, that

grass fed beef don't have this bug, generally, and that feedlot beef do.

Naturally I'm not up to date on that. That may have been just at the start.

The quite early article I linked (sorry, lazy for looking back) mentioned a number of possible drainage problems, thus my mumbling a few pages ago about swales or channel or some sort of intervention, and that it would be expensive (thinking of the regrading).

Wild hogs are another whole story in the US as a whole.

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The problem could be eliminated if a method for destruction of the thermal stable form of the E. coli exotoxin was developed. Then all vegetables could be treated with these method, and the problem would be solved.

Laughing

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Or perhaps something introduced to bind with it and thus inactivate it..

I'm surprised about the mention that if the wells on the ranch pull water from the aquifer below the fields where the cattle are that this could be a source of the contamination to the spinach. I don't know enough about what happens with bacteria in the soil getting down to aquifers.. I guess I've assumed they disintegrate somehow on the way..

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i understand that soil and sand can absorb/filter out a certain amount of bateria that is present in the surface of the soil .
the problem would be an overload of bacteria(manure) in the soil ; the sand and soil would simply not be able to complete the filtering cycle .
i know that has happened in some rural areas of ontario where , mainly because of overbuilding along lakeshores , septic tanks built too close to wells have caused well contamination - nasty stuff .
many people think that since the septic tank sits underground , they need not worry about it .
our next door neighbour is a micro-biologist who has done much water-testing in rural areas . he said that many people , when told that their well-water is contaminated will say : " it tastes perfectly fine to me . i don't see any reason for putting in any kind of a filtering system " .
of course , later they are wondering why they get sick .
hbg

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I see. Thanks, Hbg..

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Spinach outbreak culprit

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