Health Danger: Spinach

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 20 Sep 2006 20:35

The news is not brand new, but it's important if you ever eat spinach.

The following is quoted from here.

Investigators find E. coli in a spinach package search for source
POSTED: 10:41 p.m. EDT, September 20, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Spinach found in the refrigerator of a person sickened by E. coli was contaminated with the bacteria, the "smoking gun" that investigators have sought for the origin of the deadly outbreak, health officials say.

Federal and state investigators on Wednesday focused their hunt to nine farms in California's greater Salinas Valley, said Dr. Mark Horton, the state public health officer. They also were checking processing plants, said Horton, who called the bag of tainted Dole baby spinach the "smoking gun" in the case.

Despite closing in on the source of the bacteria as likely somewhere in Monterey, San Benito or Santa Clara counties, officials continued to recommend that consumers not eat fresh spinach. (Watch as the CDC works to pinpoint the E. coli source -- 2:02)

"Yesterday we had it down to California. Today we've got it down to three counties," said Dr. David Acheson of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "We want it down to a salad bowl and eventually a spinach leaf."

The tainted bag came from a refrigerator in New Mexico, said Department of Health officials for that state. A person who ate some of the leafy greens became one of 146 people in 23 states sickened by the outbreak. One person has died.

The spinach tested positive for the same strain of E. coli linked to the outbreak, Acheson said. Dole is one of the brands of spinach recalled Friday by Natural Selection Foods LLC, of San Juan Bautista, California.

The tainted greens -- conventionally grown spinach and not organic -- came from one of the farms that supplies spinach to Natural Selection, said Samantha Cabaluna, spokeswoman for Natural Selection.

Other bags of fresh spinach recovered elsewhere in the country also were being tested in the investigation.

"It's certainly premature to say only this bag is going to test positive," Acheson said. "There are others in the works."

Government and industry officials were working on how to allow spinach grown elsewhere back on the market, Acheson said.

Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg, both of New Jersey, pushed the FDA to assure the public spinach grown in their state is safe.

"As the nation's fourth-largest spinach producer, spinach farming is a multimillion-dollar industry for the Garden State," Menendez said. "That is why we are imploring the FDA to move quickly in identifying the source of the infected spinach."

Investigators began visiting farms in the Salinas Valley on Tuesday, seeking signs of past flooding or cases in which contaminated surface areas had come into contact with crops. They also were looking for potential sources of bacteria inside packing plants. (Watch why some worry about food terrorism -- 2:34)

California produces 74 percent of the nation's fresh spinach crop. The Salinas Valley accounts for roughly three-quarters of the state's share, and it has been the focus of the investigation. The area has links to both Natural Selection Foods and a second company that's also recalled fresh spinach products, River Ranch Fresh Foods of Salinas.

A third company, RLB Food Distributors of West Caldwell, New Jersey, has recalled Balducci's and FreshPro brand spinach products distributed to East Coast states because some of the spinach could have come from Natural Selection Foods.

Arizona and Colorado on Wednesday joined the list of states reporting E. coli cases. The others are California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Wisconsin has reported the most cases, as well as the lone death. (Watch why the scare is widening -- 2:09)

Among those sickened, 71 percent were women. Among those victims who could provide a date, they reported falling sick between August 19 and September 5, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New Mexico's public health laboratory isolated E. coli from the bag of opened spinach and then completed "DNA fingerprinting" tests late Tuesday. State and federal officials then matched it to the strain of the bacteria -- E. coli O157:H7 -- implicated in the outbreak."

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 20 Sep 2006 22:02

HOLY FUCKIN SHIT

Wasabi · Post by **Wasabi** » 21 Sep 2006 06:36

I love spinach, so I felt sad that I had to throw the batch I had into the trash. Good thing I didn't eat it when news of its contamination broke out.

Pengu · Post by **Pengu** » 21 Sep 2006 07:23

E. Coli is killed in high temperatures. If you're cooking the spinach, there's no reason to throw packaged spinach away. It'd be safer to not eat spinach raw for a little while though. Spinach quiche anyone?

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 21 Sep 2006 10:16

I don't like cooked spinach very much at all, I just eat baby spinach salads. They're my favorite.

BenRea · Post by **BenRea** » 21 Sep 2006 13:19

yay, i dont have to eat spinach! woooooot!

mtoolan · Post by **mtoolan** » 21 Sep 2006 14:41

yea i like spinach salads a lot too, and i had just finished one no more than 10 minutes before i saw this on the news. but that was like 4 or 5 days ago and im still alive so no worries here at the moment.

plus i work in a grocery store and i get a ton of questions about this every day.

xXLoss_of_ControlXx · Post by **xXLoss_of_ControlXx** » 21 Sep 2006 17:04

i like both fresh and cooked spinach, so its not too much of a big deal to me.

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 21 Sep 2006 18:00

Yeah, the resturant at my work hasn't been serving it for a while.

Wasabi · Post by **Wasabi** » 23 Sep 2006 07:08

I like cooked spinach more, but I don't like overcooking it to the point that it becomes a soggy mess (much like what packaged spinach is like), so I'm a bit screwed over anyway.