Dont Eat the Spinach

Some are dying from eating bagged spinach due to Ecoli bacteria:

Even if you wash the spinach, you still could be at risk. Sober warnings for salad lovers came from federal health officials Friday as they struggled to pinpoint a multistate E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened nearly 100 more.
Bagged spinach _ the triple-washed, cello-packed kind sold by the hundreds of millions of pounds each year _ is the suspected source of the bacterial outbreak, Food and Drug Administration officials said.

I love spinach! this is horrible!

The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get rid of the tenacious bug, though thorough cooking can kill it. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green.

www.breitbart.com...


Mods- if this has been posted before...oh well...
Sorry!

Yep its that old killer E-Coli 0-157:H7. When you hear about bad burgers of cruise ship food poisioning disasters this is the usual suspect.

Everybody is at risk but esp. the old and the young. They can develop a condition called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome which destroys blood cells and causes kidney shutdown.

Here is more information on the nasy bugger that causes it: Escherichia coli O157:H7

Fred, i wonder if frozen or canned is ok?

I'd hate to have that hunk of Feta cheese go to waste....I could live on this stuff...

Originally posted by dgtempe
Fred, i wonder if frozen or canned is ok?

I'd hate to have that hunk of Feta cheese go to waste....I could live on this stuff...

The feta should be okay but it depends on your sanitary conditions etc. Most e coli come from fecal matter contaminations, so if you don't wash your hands after dropping a few friends off at the lake, then you are taking a risk.

So far its just the bagged type. others should be okay. I was at the store this afternoon looking at the stuff and was surpried to see most if not all said "no washing required". I for sure would wash the stuff no matter what.

i wonder, if any of californias illegals urinated on any of the spinach. the news gave examples, like cow pheesies, chicken. well what about human pheesies. urine, #. this would do the same. so illegals are urinating on the food they pick. lovely. im no raceist, i think our country is full enough of peoples. lets face it, you put to much water in a bucket, it runs over. jobs will get harder to get, wages will be lower and so forth, thats buisness, to make a buck. thats how come they can get away with paying illegals cheap, (what), are they going to say something, no, they want to live and raise their children also and become an american citizens. if i were over there id want to be in america too, we live better, we are healthier, a medical system, lots of better things, i could go on and on why we are better. ive traveled the world and seen lots of things in the military, destruction, poverty,famine and also places of wealth. our country is by far the best, we just need a new change for a even better. get rid of these power, money greedy peoples out of power and put back in the constitution, WE THE PEOPLE, not we the people in power.

Spinach is a big part of my diet, I either have it fresh or use it along with collard greens when I make my version of Cardo Gallego dg knows what I am talking about.

But is weird that I have not purchased fresh spinach for the last two weeks but I still have some frozen one.

Originally posted by littlebird
i wonder, if any of californias illegals urinated on any of the spinach. the news gave examples, like cow pheesies, chicken...

Sorry to say, littlebird, but I'm going to bet on the bacteria already present in the soil. Possible contamination from cow/chicken industry runoff? Use of sludge/biosolids directly or runoff? I hope I'm wrong, and the point of contamination was at a processing plant. (But even at a processing plant, was the wash water contaminated by a batch contaminated and spread e coli in the wash water?) Sorry, but I don't think this contamination will be found to be a farmworker defecating on the crops. This story will be interesting to watch.

Well water is what seems to be the problem with the spinach.

Lets understand something . . . any water contaminated with any fecal residues, including that of animals (like farm animals) can cause the problem.

It's one thing to eat tainted meat (like chicken). You can cook it at a high enough temp to get rid of the bacteria. Cooking spinnach at that temp ruins the taste. and most places just wilt it in, not even cooking it, really. (Didn't find out until this morning, when I went into work. I work @ Olive Garden, and our spinach is fresh...we had to throw away everything preped, as we couldn't figure out where it came from. I had to call home to get them to trow away some that I just bought for one of my favorite dishes, in case someone decided to eat it.)

Originally posted by littlebird
i wonder, if any of californias illegals urinated on any of the spinach. the news gave examples, like cow pheesies, chicken. well what about human pheesies. urine, #. this would do the same. so illegals are urinating on the food they pick.

Since at least some spinach is harvested by machine, I'd say the answer is "no."
www.cfbf.com...

Large farms in particular tend to have harvesting machines:
cipm.ncsu.edu...

Besides, the produce is checked at various stations. If they find obvious feces or other contaminants on it at any stage, the farmer's crop is going to get thrown away and no one will ever buy from that farmer again. The farmer also runs risks of lawsuits.

Now, if YOU were the farmer, are you going to let workers poop on your harvest?

Organic fertilizers are the more likely culprit, particularly if they're not properly mulched. And e. coli is found in cattle and hogs and chickens and other animals whose waste is used as fertilizer.

So let's put away the "blame it on the illegals" mindset, please. JLC's right -- there's a lot of e coli in our food but it mostly is destroyed in the cooking process.

www.cdc.gov...

preferred food poisoning...

Ecoli is way too nasty.Try this one for size..
Anyone on a diet? I lost 24 kg with this baby...
Took 2 months to fully recover.Never ate chicken after for years but i cant live without it.. far too yummy.

But never from a mobile chicken n chip van again

Speaking of salmonellosis, that reminds me of something that happened at my dad's workplace some 6 years ago.

Most shipyards have communal waterholes (big coolers of water or gatorade), or at least did. My dad always brought his own, so he wouldn't have to go back for it. A good friend of his didn't.

Some twit put a turd in the cooler, and a lot fo the guys came down with that bugger...nearly killed the friend.

My dad refuses to drink out a communal cooler he can't see through to this day.

It has been confirmed that the spinach sold from Earthbound Farms has been the culrpit. But the FDA warns that even through some cases have been linked to the Earthbound Farm's products, there is still probablity that other brands also contain the E Coli.

Here's the site to the Earthbound Farms company.

naturalselectionfoods.com...

Popeye would be rolling in his grave right about now.

Originally posted by marg6043
Spinach is a big part of my diet, I either have it fresh or use it along with collard greens when I make my version of Cardo Gallego dg knows what I am talking about.

Marg, i'm too Americanized lately...can you u2u me the recipe for Caldo Gallego????
Please...I would love to have that again!!!!!

Originally posted by dgtempe

Marg, i'm too Americanized lately...can you u2u me the recipe for Caldo Gallego????
Please...I would love to have that again!!!!!

He, he, dg with pleasure, I keep a nice cook book of Cocina criolla for just in case I forget something.