Is lettuce still safe?
shawn3780
Posts: 4 Member
Mildly concerned about all the incidence of contaminated lettuce. How do I work around this?
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Replies
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Eat it or don't. Your choice. I live dangerously and still eat it.6 -
I'm half-convinced it's a plot by the romaine growers to keep demand high. By the time the recall is posted, your lettuce is brown and rotted at the bottom of the fridge. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/recalls-and-public-health-alerts/recall-case-archive/archive/2019/recall-115-2019-release The recall was posted Nov. 21. The use-by dates of the products were all - ALL - *at least 3 weeks* past before the recall was posted.0
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It’s only romaine that’s been recalled, and that only from a certain growing area. At Thanksgiving I was able to find a mix of spinach, baby kale, and baby chard which worked well. There are also plenty of vegetables such as celery, cucumbers, Chinese cabbage, and so on, which make good salad bases.
Any food eaten without being cooked is always going to be a possible source of contamination. Food grows in the dirt and animals poop and pee in the dirt. Some of them may carry illnesses which get into the food despite everyone’s best efforts. 99% of the time your immune system will fight these illnesses off - a whole lot more people ate romaine lettuce than are currently sick! So, unless you are immune compromised try not to obsess about it and just work with the information you have.
Immune compromised people are sometimes recommended to avoid raw salads as well as soft cheeses, lunch meats (which can grow listeriosis even at refrigerated temperatures) and other non-cooked foods. If you have immune issues it’s worth reading up for specifics. For people in good health, just try to stay on top of recalls and do the best you can, you can’t control everything.4 -
autumnb - then it's a big fat fail in my area. The store I shop pulls it from shelves for a couple weeks afterward usually. I've mostly switched to red leaf lettuce now. Maybe the Other Lettuce Producers are contaminating the competition.0
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Butter lettuce FTW 🙌🏼7
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I think the risk is low enough to not worry about it, especially if you’re a generally healthy adult.0
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Here's a good article on the possible reasons why leafy greens, especially romaine, seem to be more of a problem in recent years. It has a lot to do with contaminated water making its way into the fields. I live dangerously, so I still eat it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/why-romaine-lettuce-keeps-getting-recalled-for-e-coli-contamination/2019/11/26/f20e7592-0fc4-11ea-b0fc-62cc38411ebb_story.html
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I'm fortunate enough to live in an area where there is a small indoor farmers market all year long, and it includes growers that grow various salad greens in greenhouses or hoop houses or the like, pretty much all through the Winter. Romaine is a pretty hardy lettuce, so that's often available. (This is in a Northern Great Lakes state, so we have real Winter, trust me: Temps down well below zero F, sometime during most Winters.)
Is this lettuce less likely to be contaminated? Dunno. Since the growers are also eaters, I assume they're careful. But things could happen, sure. The one pretty sure thing is that it's completely unrelated to national recall scares, so I don't worry about those at all.
Live dangerously. Buy local.
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SuzySunshine99 wrote: »Here's a good article on the possible reasons why leafy greens, especially romaine, seem to be more of a problem in recent years. It has a lot to do with contaminated water making its way into the fields. I live dangerously, so I still eat it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/why-romaine-lettuce-keeps-getting-recalled-for-e-coli-contamination/2019/11/26/f20e7592-0fc4-11ea-b0fc-62cc38411ebb_story.html
Washington Post is behind a pay wall.0 -
I live in Mexico where you assume all produce has been watered with contaminated water. We sanitize everything with Solbac before consuming it.3
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I live in Mexico where you assume all produce has been watered with contaminated water. We sanitize everything with Solbac before consuming it.
Wait.
You can't put that stuff on food can you? Isn't it toxic? I can't find the ingredients online but I'm assuming it's a cleaning product...I wouldn't joke about that - you've read the forums, right? Someone is gonna think, "Oh! Good idea!!" 1 -
cmriverside wrote: »I live in Mexico where you assume all produce has been watered with contaminated water. We sanitize everything with Solbac before consuming it.
Wait.
You can't put that stuff on food can you? Isn't it toxic? I can't find the ingredients online but I'm assuming it's a cleaning product...I wouldn't joke about that - you've read the forums, right? Someone is gonna think, "Oh! Good idea!!"
I don’t know what Solbac is, but in some countries it’s common to rinse vegetables with a disinfectant. Some delis I’ve been to use a fruit rinse to wash apples before serving them.1 -
cmriverside wrote: »SuzySunshine99 wrote: »Here's a good article on the possible reasons why leafy greens, especially romaine, seem to be more of a problem in recent years. It has a lot to do with contaminated water making its way into the fields. I live dangerously, so I still eat it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/why-romaine-lettuce-keeps-getting-recalled-for-e-coli-contamination/2019/11/26/f20e7592-0fc4-11ea-b0fc-62cc38411ebb_story.html
Washington Post is behind a pay wall.
The TLDR version is that no one knows why romaine in particular and they are researching it. The timing (always shortly before Thanksgiving) is unusual enough that researchers have theories about neighboring crops being mulched at that time of year.0 -
rheddmobile wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »I live in Mexico where you assume all produce has been watered with contaminated water. We sanitize everything with Solbac before consuming it.
Wait.
You can't put that stuff on food can you? Isn't it toxic? I can't find the ingredients online but I'm assuming it's a cleaning product...I wouldn't joke about that - you've read the forums, right? Someone is gonna think, "Oh! Good idea!!"
I don’t know what Solbac is, but in some countries it’s common to rinse vegetables with a disinfectant. Some delis I’ve been to use a fruit rinse to wash apples before serving them.
I know. What is Solbac? Anyone? I looked online but it doesn't say anything about being used on food... I suppose I could be wrong. There's a first time for everything :nods:2 -
Just wash it (salt and water combo) that'll sort it.0
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LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Just wash it (salt and water combo) that'll sort it.
I don’t know whether you meant this seriously or not, but no, washing lettuce with salt water won’t protect you against E. coli O157:H7. There is no reliable way to remove or kill enough of this bacteria to make leafy greens safe to eat if they are contaminated.
The specific place where contaminated romaine was grown is Salinas, California. If your romaine isn’t from there, you’re safe. Romaine from the area should have been pulled from your grocery store shelves already, but you can also check the packaging to see where it was grown.5 -
The "disinfectant" used the clean food service/packaged processed fresh fruit and veg is a 50-200 ppm by chem strip potable water diluted out chlorine bleach soak for a specified amount of time, followed by a final rinse in potable water.
So unless the Solbac product in question is (1) available in a gallon jug as a liquid vs. the spray cans label Solbac manufactured by CCPI I see online and, (2), nothing more than chlorine bleach with dilution and rinse instructions, it is not likely going to be a FF&V "disinfectant". I can't readily find the MSDS for Solbac, but its marketing would leave a reasonable person to conclude it is equivalent to Lysol. Yeah, no, you don't use Lysol on food.3 -
cmriverside wrote: »I live in Mexico where you assume all produce has been watered with contaminated water. We sanitize everything with Solbac before consuming it.
Wait.
You can't put that stuff on food can you? Isn't it toxic? I can't find the ingredients online but I'm assuming it's a cleaning product...I wouldn't joke about that - you've read the forums, right? Someone is gonna think, "Oh! Good idea!!"
I don't know if it's sold in the US but it's primary ingredient is grapefruit seed oil, a totally safe product for human consumption. We actually used in in environmentally friendly restaurants I managed (grapefruit seed oil not the Solbac product). It is diluted , 3 or 4 drops per ltr of water. The veggies or fruits soak for 3 to 4 minutes. No, it's not a cleaning product.
Your post was a tad alarmist, don't you think?2 -
LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Just wash it (salt and water combo) that'll sort it.
Salt won't do it but vinegar will. It works on the same principle as Solbac. High acidity to kill the bacteria.1 -
The ingredient label. For the non Spanish speaking, Derivatives of plant citrate and seaweed.0
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grinning_chick wrote: »The "disinfectant" used the clean food service/packaged processed fresh fruit and veg is a 50-200 ppm by chem strip potable water diluted out chlorine bleach soak for a specified amount of time, followed by a final rinse in potable water.
So unless the Solbac product in question is (1) available in a gallon jug as a liquid vs. the spray cans label Solbac manufactured by CCPI I see online and, (2), nothing more than chlorine bleach with dilution and rinse instructions, it is not likely going to be a FF&V "disinfectant". I can't readily find the MSDS for Solbac, but its marketing would leave a reasonable person to conclude it is equivalent to Lysol. Yeah, no, you don't use Lysol on food.
As you can see by my previous posts, it's neither a spray nor chlorine bleach. It's drops and the ingredient label is posted above.
Btw, the correct dilution of chlorine bleach is an approved sanitizer by most US health departments. The more typical commercially used one is quaternary sanitizer. Neither are as environmentally preferable as citrus derivatives. However both chlorine bleach and quaternary sanitizers in the appropriate dilutions are widely used both in healthcare and foodservice in the US.1 -
I eat romaine and other lettuces daily and I’m not dead yet. At least, I don’t think I am. ☠️4
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LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Just wash it (salt and water combo) that'll sort it.
I don’t know whether you meant this seriously or not, but no, washing lettuce with salt water won’t protect you against E. coli O157:H7. There is no reliable way to remove or kill enough of this bacteria to make leafy greens safe to eat if they are contaminated.
The specific place where contaminated romaine was grown is Salinas, California. If your romaine isn’t from there, you’re safe. Romaine from the area should have been pulled from your grocery store shelves already, but you can also check the packaging to see where it was grown.
This - any sort of disinfectant isn’t a good bet to kill e.coli in particular. Some bacteria require large numbers to be infectious. E.coli only requires approximately 9 individual bacteria to cause disease. That means if there are 9 billion bacteria and your product kills 99.9% of them, it didn’t help you.4 -
I'd just bought 2 6 packs of Romaine from Costco from Salinas and ate two heads. I called administrators and was told it was safe but to return if nervous. I eat most of a head of Romaine a day and baby spring greens for my other salad. Red leaf and green leaf lettuce are similar if you want to avoid Romaine. There's butter lettuce, spinach, kale, and lots of other options. I just bought Romaine today as red leaf doesn't look good at the store and I'm in CA, guess I'm living dangerously!0
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Why washing won't work
"Although washing produce can reduce some contamination, it doesn't kill bacteria, so unfortunately won't eliminate the risk. Once E. coli bacteria make their way onto lettuce, they are able to fill tiny cracks and crevices all over a leaf. And even a small number of E. coli bacteria are enough to get people sick.
In a recent study, researchers tried washing E. coli off of romaine lettuce and other leafy greens. They found that a powerful wash was able to remove some bacteria from lettuce, but it didn't significantly reduce the quantities of E. coli — and enough remained to make people sick."
"Leafy greens like romaine and spinach are the most common sources of foodborne illness infections, according to an analysis by the CDC. There are many opportunities for bacteria to spread to these products and they're usually eaten raw, which means bacteria aren't killed by cooking."
https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2019/o157h7-11-19/index.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/is-it-safe-to-eat-romaine-lettuce-2018-4
If the irrigation water is contaminated you can't wash it out or off the plant. It travels through the roots to the leaves.1 -
https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/preventing-e-coli-from-garden-to-plate-9-369/
"Consequences of E. coli O157:H7 can affect all age groups. The very young and very old are most vulnerable to long-term complications.
When E. coli O157:H7 attaches to the gut wall of infected people, it sets up an infection known as hemorrhagic colitis (HC). Initial symptoms generally occur within one to two days of eating the contaminated food, although periods up to three to five days have been reported. "0 -
Washing Your Greens Won't Protect Against E. Coli
https://www.consumerreports.org/e-coli/washing-greens-protect-e-coli/0 -
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Been eating egg salad lettuce wraps for the past week with no I'll effects.1
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