When the Food and Drug Administration (fda) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc) announced the formal end of the lettuce panic, we all breathed a sigh of collective relief. Yo!
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If this outbreak makes you shy about lettuce (we don't blame you), you can take some measures to reduce the risk of eating contaminated vegetables. Read on to four suggestions from Dr. Jennifer Qunlan, a food microbiologist at Draxel University in Philadelphia.
You should take lettuce around.
Compared with other fruits and vegetables, green leafy vegetables eventually led to more multi-state outbreaks (seven since 2010). One reason is that leaves in green leafy vegetables (such as spinach, sesame, romance, etc.) provide a lot of shelter for bacteria. To keep your vegetables clean, Quinlan recommends a lettuce spinner. Use cold water to wash away potential pathogens and keep vegetables crisp. As for sprays and detergents that claim to cleanse products, Quinlan said she had not seen any studies showing that they significantly improve safety.
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Quinlan said that if it says it's pre-washed, don't wash it again. Contrary to what you might hear, packaged lettuce and vegetables marked as pre-washed should not be washed again. & She explained that any company that manufactures ready-to-eat food on a large scale will follow the washing industry standards. It includes a chlorine mouthwash used to kill bacteria. If contaminants survive in super-clean (Quinlan says this does happen in very rare cases), then your re-clean won't do you any good. More importantly, re-washing increases the chances of cross-contamination between lettuce and bacteria remaining in the kitchen, such as raw chicken.
Maybe don't eat bean sprouts. Forever.
Forget worrying about green leaf disease. Since 1996, sprouts have been associated with at least 30 outbreaks of foodborne diseases. & "I don't know any food microbiologists who eat bean sprouts," Dr. Quinlan said. & What is the reason why these seedlings are so unpopular? In order to germinate, seeds are placed in a warm and humid environment, so they are basically ideal breeding grounds for bacteria. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also wrote on its website that bacteria can enter seeds through cracks before sprouts grow. Once this happens, these bacteria are almost impossible to remove, and the FDA warns that pregnant women, young children and anyone with a weaker immune system should avoid sprouting (including alfalfa, clover, radish and mung bean sprouts).
When it comes to organic and non-organic food, it is basically a cleaning method. There are many reasonable reasons to buy organic fruits and vegetables, but fear of contaminants such as E. coli and Salmonella should not be one of them. & Quinlan says organic produce is equally safe, but there's no reason to think it's safer. The same goes for locally grown produce, which you can find at nearby farmers'markets. Typical sources of pollution affect all types of farms (small and large farms, organic farms and non-organic farms), including runoff, pests (such as rodents and birds) and unsafe practices by anyone who may come into contact with agricultural products on the way.
Still do not believe that organic matter is as vulnerable to pollution as non-organic matter? According to a study in the Journal of Food Protection, from 1992 to 2014, there were 18 outbreaks caused by organic foods (8 of which were related to agricultural products). If you care about organic food, please click here for more information!
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