When you think of food poisoning, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is undercooked chicken, spoiled milk, or oysters. Personally, I remember swallowing a high school student’s sushi boat and finding myself calling on mom early in the morning.
But don't ignore the crispyness of your vegetables. In terms of foodborne diseases, leafy greens are alone. In 2022, they are identified as the cause of five individual polymorphic food-borne foam outbreaks, more than any other food. Roman lettuce has a particularly bad reputation, and there is good reason. In 2018, contaminated Roman hair killed five people, causing kidney failure in another 27. last year, E. coli The outbreak is with what you guessed - Romaine sent 36 people to hospitals in 15 states. Maybe ironic More risk Than the entire Roman hair head.
Nowadays, eating lettuce is especially gambling. Although the U.S. system to track and respond to foodborne diseases has been seriously overlooked for decades, it has been further undermined recently. The Biden administration cuts funds for food inspections, and the Trump White House’s attempt to ruthlessly cut federal labor has blurred the future of food safety. Food safety experts told me that the system is under so much pressure that regulators may miss out on cases of foodborne illnesses, giving Americans a false sense of security. If you can do one thing now to help protect yourself, it’s this: sworn in, sacked lettuce.
Americans didn't suddenly get sick from romaine lettuce, or anything else. David Acheson, a former FDA food safety official, now advises food companies, including lettuce producers, to tell me: “There are no problem for only millions of these bags.” But the most disturbing thing lately is the lack of a way to inform the public of potential threats. Consider last year's Roman cheese outbreak. Americans only realized the epidemic last month NBC News Internal reports were obtained from the FDA. The agency reportedly did not publicize the outbreak or publish the name of the company that made lettuce because by the time the FDA determined the cause, the threat was over. The reason seems almost reasonable - until you realize that Americans can't determine which food is safe, nor is it safe without knowing how often it will make people sick. (A spokesperson for the FDA did not respond to a request for comment.)
On this information, giving up lettuce is a bit like wearing a seat belt. Just like the way you may not completely avoid riding a bike due to the risk of an accident, don't swear all Roman hair, because one day it will make you sick. Lettuce and other leafy greens are full of nutrition, and giving up on them is not a healthy victory. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't practice reducing damage. Buying the head of the whole lettuce may just keep you from hacking into the life hack of Caesar salad.
Bags of lettuce will increase the chance of contaminating products. When you buy a lettuce head, you bet that exact crop has not been infected yet. However, the process of making the original lettuce essentially requires passing the entire head through the wood crusher. Once an infected head enters the machine, fragments of infected lettuce stick around and the subsequent head may become infected. “Buying a head of a long cheese lettuce is like bathing with other important people; buying a bag of Roman lettuce is like swimming in a Las Vegas pool,” food safety attorney Bill Marler told me.
There is also some evidence that chopped long cheese makes lettuce more susceptible to pathogens. A study that tests growth E. coli The purposefully infected roman cheese found, cut lettuce into large pieces within four hours, E. coli The growth on the plant is more than twice as high as uncut lettuce. Chopping lettuce is even worse. this E. coli Added on that plant Elevenfold During the same period. The theory of why this happens is similar to the reason why it cuts makes people more susceptible to infection. Essentially, cutting romaine destroys the outer protective layer of lettuce, making bacteria more proliferating. (The experiment was performed at relatively high temperatures, so if you refrigerate it, chopped lettuce may be safer. However, the convenience of pre-trimmed lettuce still comes with another additional risk.)
No, strictly washing the lettuce is not the answer. If infected, only thorough cooking can kill bacteria and protect you from illness. Benjamin Chapman, a food safety expert at North Carolina State University, told me that rinsing vegetables is a “mitigation step to mitigate risks, but not guaranteed.” Buying the head of an entire lettuce is an imperfect solution, but the best things consumers can do as regulators continue to throw away the ball in terms of food safety. Many lettuce are contaminated by irrigation water from nearby feedlots, but the FDA has spent a decade setting water quality standards for most crops. The FDA is also constantly lagging behind its own inspection goals. The Government's internal regulator found that the FDA had missed the goal of conducting routine food inspections since 2018, according to a January report by the Office of Government Responsibility.
Politicians on both sides seem content to cut down on already powerful institutions. In the second half of last year, the Biden administration announced it would cut $34 million in funding to conduct routine inspections of farms and factories on behalf of the FDA, reportedly because the agency’s budget needs to make up for inflation. Under Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the FDA is now raising funds and laying off employees. Although the Trump administration claims that no real food inspector will be fired due to the government’s layoffs, there is evidence that in fact, the move will make it harder for the administration to respond when it is sick to strike. Spending freezing and cutting to executives has reportedly made it difficult for FDA inspectors to go to the farm and let them buy sample products at grocery stores for testing. A committee is responsible for exploring a range of food safety issues, including which strains to detect E. coli San Francisco's critical food safety lab was allegedly attacked by mass layoffs due to bloody diarrhea and kidney failure. The New York Times. (San Francisco Lab employees told me they are now hired.)
Skipping pretreated bagged lettuce may sound like a neurotic suggestion, but over the next few months, a tree-shaded burst will almost certainly occur. It seems to happen every fall, and this will be responded by RFK Jr. Although Kennedy has promised to cultivate a fundamentally transparent culture in federal health institutions, he has not felt at ease during his first few months of work. Staff from the FDA's main communications department were fired. Therefore, there are staff in the Office of Public Records. The latest government news about the ongoing bird explosion has actually stopped. It is reasonable to assume that the Trump administration will adopt a similar "invisible evil, unable to hear evil, not speak evil" method to make us sick food.
"I'm really worried that we'll see outbreaks, the number of diseases drops - it's not about the safety of the food supply," Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutritional Assurance at George Washington University, told me. "It just means if you're not looking for something, you can't find it." With so much uncertainty about food safety, tearing off the knife and chopped lettuce beat a trip to the hospital, or hugging the toilet for one night.