Lettuce

An agricultural trade group is proposing mandatory food safety standards for California lettuce and spinach producers, in hopes that such a system will help restore public confidence after a deadly E. coli outbreak this summer. The proposal Monday by Irvine-based Western Growers Assn.

Mexico said it would reopen its borders to lettuce imports from California after U.S. authorities reported that tests on irrigation water and lettuce for E. coli bacteria had come back negative. On Oct. 9, Mexico banned all lettuce imports from the U.S. and then two days later narrowed it to apply only to California lettuce. The decision came in reaction to an Oct.

Farm interests from the Salinas Valley to Washington reacted angrily Wednesday to a ban on U.S. lettuce imports by Mexico. "This is an outrageous step that has no basis at all in science or food safety," said Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Assn. in Washington. The Mexican Ministry of Health on Tuesday blocked U.S. lettuce after the voluntary recall two days earlier by a Central California farm of more than 8,500 cartons of green-leaf lettuce. Nunes Co.

The Salinas company that issued a recall of green-leaf lettuce said Tuesday that neither the greens nor its irrigation water tested positive for the potentially deadly strain of E. coli that has sickened nearly 200 people and killed three in a separate spinach outbreak. A private lab ran tests for the company. "We are relieved that all results were negative, and we are confident our product is safe," company President Tom Nunes said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday.

The discovery of E. coli in Salinas Valley irrigation water used on a lettuce crop indicates that fecal bacteria is widespread in the environment but offers no new insight into the contaminated spinach that has sickened nearly 200 people, food safety experts said Monday. Nunes Co. of Salinas, Calif., voluntarily recalled more than 8,500 cartons of green-leaf lettuce Sunday after discovering E. coli in irrigation water used on the crop.

A week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning against eating spinach, a Salinas, Calif., produce company voluntarily recalled 8,500 cartons of lettuce Sunday after tests found E. coli contamination in the water used for irrigation. There have been no reported illnesses from consumers of Foxy brand green-leaf lettuce, which was shipped last week by the Nunes Co., one of the nation's largest vegetable suppliers.

Federal and state officials have launched a wide-ranging evaluation of lettuce farming and processing in the Salinas Valley, hoping to determine why leafy greens grown here over the last decade have been linked to a potentially deadly strain of E. coli. Lettuce and spinach grown in the valley, dubbed the "Salad Bowl of the World," have been connected to eight of 19 outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7, associated with such produce since 1995.

WHEN a friend invited us to dinner recently, he apologized, by saying it would be only grilled salmon or Italian sausages and "a big salad." With his wife out of town, he said, he was wrangling two young kids and an ailing father-in-law and needed to keep things simple. My first thought was: And you're making salad? Washing and drying all that lettuce?

IT'S quite possible to pick what you toss into the salad tonight. Maybe mix some heritage 'Green Devil's Tongue' lettuce with colorful 'Red Ruffled Oak Leaf,' or the rather flashy and trendy 'Speckled Trout Back' lettuce? How about the incredibly tasty 'Merveille des Quatre Saisons' (almost never found at markets), a butterhead lettuce with loose, tender heads colored a lovely, bronzy green? Toss in a little arugula, curly endive, red mustard or mizuna to give it some kick.

The prickly plants started in Catalina Sanchez's garden and now stretch across her neighbors' fields as far as the eye can see. They pop up on acre after acre as word gets around: This village of dirt floors and outdoor toilets expects to get rich exporting cactus. The seed money comes from men who couldn't make a living here and left for California, the idea from one of the women they left behind.