E Coli linked to ORGANIC spinach

[RichardR]

I was waiting for this - FDA: E. coli linked to Natural Selection Foods:

The Food and Drug Administration said late Friday that an E. coli outbreak had been linked to bagged spinach products distributed by Natural Selection Foods/Earthbound Farms, based in San Juan Bautista, California.

Now tell me again why organic is better? No pesticides was it?

 

[orpheus]

I've always wondered about this. It makes sense that one should be careful about ingesting pesticides (though I'd like to see actual data, rather than pro-organic propaganda), but it also makes sense that pesticides can be a good thing (though I'd like to see actual data, rather than anti-organic propaganda).

Not to imply that you're propagandizing, RichardR. And I thank you for starting the discussion. Important topic.

 

[LeCynthia]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but what does pesticides have to do with anything? I mean, it could have had e. coli whether it was organic or grown with pesticides and packed with preservitives.

 

[mumchup]

Good to know. I haven't gotten around to throwing out the spinach in the fridge. It's not baby spinach, which I use for salads, but I was planning to toss it anyway out of general paranoia even though I would have been cooking it.
Now I've saved myself a couple bucks and my minestrone won't be "missing something" because I don't ever buy organic food in the grocery store unless that's the only available form of a particular vegetable I want to buy.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Whether they use pesticides is not the issue IIRC. They use manure (as in fecal matter) as a fertilizer instead of chemicals on many organic farms. If you don't clean the veggies properly, you run the risk of nasty little pooh pooh germs (to use the technical term) staying on your veggies.

I believe the particularly worrisome products are similar to spinach and lettuce, where if you've ever cleaned stuff to make a salad, there's always a lot of grit/sand/soil down near the base. If the planting mixture contains manure then you're possibly ingesting some.

Another IIRC item - pardon me if it's hearsay, but I recall from about 10 years ago that one organic provider was actually using human waste as a fertilizer.

 

[grayman]

 

[HeyLeroy]

See, that's why I swear by Soylent Green^tm brand synthetic spinach. Yum!

 

[Soapy Sam]

Recent research suggests that bacteria themselves may be organic!

 

[Jorghnassen]

Here's an interesting anecdote I found in the comments of a Fark thread on the subject.

In my intro microbiology class a few years back, taught by the wonderful Dr. Smith, we examined a number of things from the grocery store to see just how dirty they are. Every semester Dr. Smith does that particular exercise, the bagged fresh veggies win. Ours was no exception.

Furthermore, people tend not to wash the bagged veggies because they assume the bag has somehow protected the produce. Uhhh, no. This makes said bagged fresh produce a large source of food-borne infection/intoxication.

And while organic farming does use composted manure as a fertilizer, I have yet to see any evidence that it is not used in standard agriculture. So while this particular outbreak of E. coli should serve as a reminder that organic food isn't any cleaner than non-organically produced stuff, it does not prove it is inherently less clean either, as this incident could be the result of improper application of hygiene regulations in the packaging process, independent of the farming technique.

 

[Steven Howard]

Good to know. I haven't gotten around to throwing out the spinach in the fridge. It's not baby spinach, which I use for salads, but I was planning to toss it anyway out of general paranoia even though I would have been cooking it.
Now I've saved myself a couple bucks and my minestrone won't be "missing something" because I don't ever buy organic food in the grocery store unless that's the only available form of a particular vegetable I want to buy.

Just because it doesn't say "Natural Selection Foods" or "organic" on the label doesn't mean it didn't come from that company. From the AP story:

They are sold as Rave Spinach, Natural Selection Foods, Dole, Earthbound Farm, Trader Joe's, Ready Pac, Green Harvest, among other brand names.

Also:

FDA officials stressed that the bacteria had not been isolated in products sold by Natural Selection Foods but that the link was established by patient accounts of what they had eaten before becoming ill.

An investigation was continuing.

"It is possible that the recall and the information will extend beyond Natural Selection Foods and involve other brands and other companies, at other dates," said Dr. David Acheson, the chief medical officer with the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

And later:

More than half the nation's 500-million-pound spinach crop is grown in California's Monterey County.

Even before the latest outbreak, a joint state and federal effort has been under way in the California county to find and eliminate any possible sources of E. coli contamination.

 

[60hzxtl]

Organic is so greatly misused.

The bad bacteria here in the spinach is organic.

You can grow organic tobacco.

In China, I saw the most beautiful radishes in the market- Organic! but you better not eat them raw! (Night soil!) Same with the spotty apples you get in China, peel 'em or suffer the consequences. Washing this Spinach will not do any good, the roots have absorbed the shtufff - its in the leaves now.

Then, I hear people afraid of "genetically modified food" who eat what we call Broccoli, and I just smile. . .

I also smile when my boss, drinks Fiji water in a plastic bottle, and I ask her how much fossil fuel was burned to bring that water to her, when water runs down hill, and I have it on TAP at home!

Its good to have the luxury to have food that tastes good, AND makes you feel good about yourself. (Now if they'd just get out of the aisle in Whole Foods and stop reading the labels, on everything. . . )

 

[Jorghnassen]

On a side note, organic kids cereal are much cheaper than the regular brands. While on the issue of nutrittion, they're just the same overloaded sugar compound, they don't spend obscene amounts of money on advertizing...

 

[mumchup]

Just because it doesn't say "Natural Selection Foods" or "organic" on the label doesn't mean it didn't come from that company.

I should have clarified. I am in possession of spinach that was grown and packed in Massachussetts by an entirely different company.

 

[varwoche]

I believe the particularly worrisome products are similar to spinach and lettuce, where if you've ever cleaned stuff to make a salad, there's always a lot of grit/sand/soil down near the base. If the planting mixture contains manure then you're possibly ingesting some.

In this instance it's worse than that, if what I hear from the press is accurate -- the e.coli is infused into the plant and can't be washed or cooked away.

 

[Jon the Geek]

Irradiation is used to protect against this sort of thing. Resistance to irradiation is wrapped up in the "organic" label. Therefore, this being organic is a factor:
* This spinach was fertilized with manure, rather than purified chemical fertilizers.
* This spinach was not irradiated to kill bacteria.

 

[Jorghnassen]

* This spinach was fertilized with manure, rather than purified chemical fertilizers.
* This spinach was not irradiated to kill bacteria.

You have failed to show whether:
1-irradiation is used on most non-organically grown bagged spinach
2-no composted manure is used in producing non-organically grown bagged spinach (or that composted manure was actually the fertilizer used in the contaminated bagged spinach)
3-that the contamination of said bagged spinach occured specifically because of organic farming practice (rather than, say, lack of compliance to FDA regulations).

In short, whatever your opinions on organic agriculture are, don't jump to conclusions.

 

[SteveGrenard]

And not only Popeye's eating habits are trying to kill us but so are Bugs Bunny's
drinking habits.

This is an official
CDC HEALTH ADVISORY


Distributed via Health Alert Network
Saturday, September 16, 2006, 0:31 EDT (12:31 PM EDT)
CDCHAN-00250-2006-09-16-ADV-N

Outbreak of Botulinum toxin Type A associated with bottled carrot juice
A commercial beverage has been confirmed as the cause of a cluster of three botulism cases in Georgia. The three patients had onset of symptoms on Friday, September 8th, after consuming a common meal that included commercially produced carrot juice on Thursday, September 7th. Two bottles of juice were consumed. All three patients drank from bottle #1; whether all three patients drank from bottle #2 is unknown. Botulinum toxin type A was identified in the serum and stool of all three patients by mouse bioassay. Subsequently, botulinum toxin type A was identified from carrot juice remaining in bottle #1 by mouse bioassay. Bottle #2 had been rinsed with water, and the test for toxin was negative. The label on the implicated bottle reads "Bolthouse Farms, Bakersfield, California, 100% carrot juice." The use by date is 09-18-06.


http://www2a.cdc.gov/HAN/ArchiveSys/ViewMsgV.asp?AlertNum=00250

 

[Jorghnassen]

That's it, from now on I'm only eating meat...

 

[60hzxtl]

That's it, from now on I'm only eating meat...

Meat is the best vegetable!

 

[SteveGrenard]

I noticed several posts implicating the use of manure as a possible means of contaminating the organic spinach in question with E.coli. Here is an e-mail from Sweden about last year's outbreak there of this bug which was found in nearby water to irrigate lettuce. I am not sure what the implications are of this report. It would seem that the cattle MAY have been contaminating the stream which in turn may've contaminated the lettuce. Curiously the researchers could not recover this E.coli strain from the lettuce itself.

Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006
From: Ann Soderstrom <ann.soderstrom@vgregion.se>


In response to E. coli VTEC non-O157, lettuce - USA (UT)
[20060904.2521] where there were discussions about how the lettuce
had become contaminated:

During late summer 2005, the largest outbreak of EHEC
[Enterohemorrhagic _E. coli_ ] O157 ever recorded in humans in any
Nordic country occurred in Sweden. There were 135 cases recorded, of
these 11 patients developed hemolytic uremic syndrome. There were no
fatal outcomes.

Epidemiological investigations implicated lettuce as the source of
the outbreak. Water samples taken from a small stream used for
irrigation of lettuce were positive for O157 VT 2 [Vero toxin 2 -
Mod.LL] by PCR [polymerase chain reaction]. A strain identical to
that found in the human cases was also isolated from cattle of a
nearby farm, upstream the irrigation point. We were not able to
isolate the EHEC strain from lettuce.

This outbreak will be presented as an poster at the VTEC 2006
Congress in Melbourne, Australia.

The e-mail to ProMed was also signed by:

Yvonne Andersson
Head Epidemiologist
Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control

Anders Lindberg MD National Board of Health and Welfare
Sweden


A link to a Map was also provided:

Vastra Gotaland in the southwestern part of the country, can be found at:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/c/c7/120px-Svcmap_vastra_gotaland.png