Leafy greens once got a quick rinse and then fell right in the salad bowl without a second thought.
After the two E. coli scares late last year, some cooks are thinking more carefully about their greens, while others don't seem phased.
In a follow-up story about the E. coli found on spinach and then in iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell, The New York Times says "there hasn’t been much public outrage or even disgust at the notion of filth seeping into the food supply."
"What can you do?" LunaPierCook asks, "Do you go to extremes, not going to restaurants unless you’ve devoured their inspection reports first . . . only buying fruits and vegetables when you know exactly where they came from and under what circumstances? . . . C’mon, gimme a break."
The Ethicurean predicts more outbreaks and says, "The spinach and Taco Bell outbreaks have America scared of food again."
Do you agree? Now that these scares have moved off the front pages, are Americans still thinking about this issue?
Today, Fresh Express, one of the nation's biggest processors of bagged lettuce, pledged up to $2 million to pay for scientific research to improve produce safety. Next year, Wegmans will begin requiring food safety audits at the farms that supply their produce. That's a start.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I have to admit that since the scare has died down I haven't given it too much thought. Right after it I didn't eat spinach very often and if I did it was thouroughly cleaned, now I am sad to say I am back to my old ways of a quick go under the faucet.
I don't even think about it anymore. I don't even remember being very worried during "the scares"! Am I brave or stupid? Who knows?!
i don't like raw greens much (texture thing) so i wasn't too worried, as i always cooked them.
sort of a propos: i was wondering if anyone had a cooked lettuce recipe...? i saw a recipe on nigella a while back for lettuce and peas that looked intriguing, but i can't remember what it was called.
I was at Costco around New Years and their bag of mixed greens had a sticker that said "does not contain spinach" which made me wonder if it was bagged way back during the scare or if I am the only one who forgot about it. The thing is, who has the time, energy, or resources to go the extra mile on this. I think we react when the media reacts, and retract when they do. $2 million is a great pledge, but that seems like so little money for what they are proposing. Everything seems to be getting more and more dangerous, including eating, which one are we going to keep up with. How about the lady in California that died from water the other day all to win some Nintedo game for her kids.
Andy Griffin is a farmer who runs Mariquita Farm outside of Santa Barbara, in Watsonville, CA. He started ( and later sold) one of the companies affected by the spinach scare of this summer. Apparently, it started out as a small organic operation. Andy writes a monthly newsletter, and of course, he had something to say about the E Coli outbreaks. I appreciated his take on it.
http://www.ladybugletter.com/articles/spinach.html
Unfortunately, Mariquita Farm is too far from me here in Los Angeles to really benefit from investing into a farm share. I settle on shopping the Farmer's Markets instead, and I wasn't concerned about buying loose spinach. The problem was the packaging and farming practices, not all spinach.
The Mariquita website makes me want to move to a farm...for about five minutes! Anyway, it's interesting reading about fruits and veggies.
Liz - I've cooked lettuce in soup and it turned out to taste like a mix between cabbage and bok choy. It wasn't bad.
During a cooking mistake last night, while roasting brussel sprouts, many of the leaves fell off and roasted alone making them very brown and crispy. I seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil spray, and balsamic vinegar and it was the best tasting veggie chip I've ever had! I plan to try making a batch of them next week. It was like fresh potato chips out of the fryer but without all the bad stuff. -- just another thought on leafy veggies.
the food scares of the past several months just make the importance of buying local and knowing (and trusting) your grower more apparent. Industrial agriculture is a problem, whether you're buying organic spinach or feedlot beef. The chain from grower to market is too long, the food changes too many hands, there's too much to go wrong. Shop your farmer's markets and buy shares in CSAs. You won't have to worry about contamination.
As for me, I'm following my own advice as you see in this post. Water won't rinse E. coli bacteria off the greens, so I would only give it a quick rinse under cold water to chill the greens and make them glisten a bit. The greens in the bowl in the second pic at http://www.blogsmonroe.com/food/?p=63 came right out of the bags, which came straight out of the fridge. They're Fresh Express brand, the 5-Lettuce Mix variety, and contain no spinach according to the label. I didn't select them for this reason, but instead picked them out solely because they looked good. On our property in this small town in southeastern Michigan there's really no room for a vegetable garden of our own. Is this the only choice anymore? That's the real question. Just how safe, scared, or downright paranoid *should* we be? I'm not so sure anyone yet knows.
Seriously it is all in the handling and preparation. The concern that 'all spinach' or 'all salad greens' pose a risk is a bit of a nonsense. Seriously, a rinse might not kill of any bad bugs, but you have just as much chance picking up some bug by buying any prepared food.