Three recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses traced to bagged spinach or lettuce from California have led some scientists and food safety advocates to suggest that packaging greens might contribute to the spread of a lethal strain of E. coli bacteria.
In particular, the centralized processing of fresh greens can increase the risk of more widespread contamination, just as tainted beef from one steer can find its way into hundreds of packages of ground meat, said Dr. David W.K. Acheson, chief medical officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
"If you have a single head of [tainted] lettuce that winds up in someone's home, makes the family sick, chances are it'll never get on the radar screen," Acheson said. "If you take the same lettuce, process it
Bagged lettuce: An article in Saturday's Section A reported that some scientists and food safety advocates believe that packaging greens might contribute to the spread of a lethal strain of \o7E. coli bacteria and included a photograph of bagged lettuce in a grocery store. The photo showed rows of Fresh Express products; however, that company has not been identified as being associated with any of the recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.
The way some greens are harvested also has raised concerns, said Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, who was recently hired by Taco Bell to review its safety guidelines.
"I quit eating bagged lettuce years ago," Doyle said. "After seeing how bagged lettuce was harvested and prepared, my impression was it's not very sanitary."
Doyle referred specifically to bagged iceberg lettuce, which has been investigated in the simultaneous but separate Taco John's and Taco Bell outbreaks of Escherichia coli O157:H7 that sickened more than 150 customers in the Midwest and on the East Coast in November and December.
Officials have linked those outbreaks to farms in the Central Valley and possibly on the coast south of Salinas.
The illnesses occurred only months after another leafy green, spinach, was blamed in an outbreak that killed three people and sickened more than 200 in late August and early September. That outbreak was traced to bagged spinach from the Greater Salinas Valley, which was sold in stores nationwide.
The upshot is that pre-washed and packaged produce, a $3-billion industry created to improve both safety and convenience, is under a cloud. Though the individual consumer's risk of illness remains small, experts said, the only practical way to ensure that greens are free of E. coli is to thoroughly cook them -- not a desirable option for lettuce.
E. coli is commonly found in healthy cattle and shed through their feces. Federal and state officials believe that produce outbreaks occur when bacteria-carrying manure gets into fields via livestock, water, birds or other wildlife.
