Romaine lettuce is not safe to eat, CDC warns U.S. consumers

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Romaine lettuce is unsafe to eat in any form, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in a broad alert in response to a new outbreak of illnesses caused by a particularly dangerous type of E. coli contamination.

The CDC told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, no matter where or when the lettuce was grown. It doesn’t matter if it is chopped, whole head or part of a mix. All romaine should be avoided.

The CDC alert, issued just two days before Americans sit down for their Thanksgiving dinners, reported that 32 people in 11 states have become sick from eating contaminated romaine. Of those, 13 have been hospitalized, with one patient suffering from a form of kidney failure. The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported 18 people infected with the same strain of E. coli.

No deaths have been reported.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/romaine-lettuce-is-not-safe-to-eat-cdc-warns-us-consumers/2018/11/20/726d0ae6-ece9-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html?utm_term=.b39f49947e20&wpisrc=al_news__alert-hse--alert-national&wpmk=1

I had some romaine lettuce on the sandwich I had for lunch. That was just before I read this article. Haven't felt sick yet.

[tavernier]

1. I buy romaine and mix with spinach and arugula

Best salad ever, with blue cheese dressing.
I’ve had it two days in a row now and I’m not ill, so I assume the remainder in the bag is safe to eat.

[Flaleftist]

12. It can take several days from consumption before you feel any symptoms.

Florida isn't on the list of states with reported cases, but I'm not sure that means it's in the clear.

[tavernier]

16. I'm in Indiana till January

Thanks for the heads up, though!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

17. That would be enough to make me ill. Nyuk nyuk.

[tavernier]

19. Visiting family for holidays so not so bad.

No Rumps allowed on this Christmas tree farm.

[Sedona]

2. I was eating romaine all weekend

And I'm sick as fuck!

[CentralMass]

3. This seems a bit extreme.

[Leith]

9. Food Poisoning Is No Joke

See Sedona's post #2.

5 1/2 years ago, I got food poisoning from rice. I was in the bathroom for 36 hours straight. You don't need details.

[CentralMass]

23. True. I didn't mean to mimimize it.

[Mendocino]

4. The Rise and Fall

of the Romaine Empire.

[DontBooVote]

5. Ok...my 1st Duzy nom!

Well done....

[GulfCoast66]

6. I avoid greens from out of state, especially organic ones.

Too much chance of contamination from the organic fertilizers. I usually by hydroponic grown salad greens.

Of course, this time of the year in Florida my garden is full of green things.

[Blue_true]

7. Warnings like the one issued is why I am betting most small profile food

items will be grown in controlled environment buildings within 25 years. Lettuce of all types and spinach of all types are prime candidates. May take a while to grow many fruit indoors, but strawberries and pineapple likely will go indoors within the next 15 years.

[GulfCoast66]

10. It's not necessary with most food items

I am in the Agriculture field. Leaf vegetables are uniquely succeptable to contamination. Here in Florida we grow lots of strawberries. Their production manner makes contamination very unlikely. The plants grow thru a small hole punched in plastic ground cover making contamination from the soil almost impossible. And more and more of them are grown using hydroponics in standing columns.

[Blue_true]

11. I think yield and consistency of flavor will drive the transition.

I am not sure that someone like you will be hurt by the change if you are on the innovation side of the business. If you sell traditional equipment watch out. But if you design new equipment, you likely will do well from the change.

There are companies already growing salad greens indoors under grow lights. Once they couple that with their own energy source (wind or solar), their economics will be daunting for a land farmer to beat, since the indoor place can do 4-6 harvestings a year versus 1 or 2 for a land farmer.

[GulfCoast66]

14. Right. It is crop dependent.

Florida has the advantage of producing many products when it is too cold elsewhere giving our farmers a huge pricing advantage for 5-6 months of the year. Most strawberries on the market from about now till March will be Florida grown. After that it gets too hot. And growing in climate control will never pay off for strawberries. The yield is not there compared to indoors.

The lettuce I buy is grown indoors. But it is way more expensive than that grown in the fields.

Same with Tomatoes. We are cranking them out now. For the next several months they will be less expensive and frankly superior to those beautiful vine grown you see which are grown indoors. Especially for tomatoes meant for canning or processing. They will never be grown indoors.

The 600lb gorilla in the room is farm labor. If we ever stop exploiting underpaid illegal labor then indoors will be more competitive. Even when(optimist here) we get a guest worker program their pay will go up since they will be legal and regulated. If more people knew how our crops are planted and harvested they would be appalled.

[Blue_true]

8. I don't eat lettuce without exposing it to a salt water solution overnight

I rinse away the salt water and either use the lettuce right away or put it in a clean crisper.

[GulfCoast66]

15. It's been a long time since I studied microbiology

But is I remember correctly, by the point you get a high enough salt content to kill contaminating bacteria, you would have pickled greens.

That is the trick behind Sauerkraut and Kimchi. If I am incorrect please correct me. But I make both the fore mentioned products and it takes a good bit of salt. Enough to really wilt the greens overnight.

[suffragette]

13. This comes after a year of issues with romaine in US

and/or Canada.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

18. Ptomaine Romaine.

[shanti]

20. That sucks

Romaine is my favorite type of lettuce.

[califootman]

21. What would Trump say about this?

"Don't listen to this fake news from those loser scientists at the CDC! Hey, the world is a dangerous place. We can't afford to lose these sales in the lettuce business. It is what it is!"

[Demonaut]

22. it must have a common cause, bacteria do not spontaneous exist