Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Raw beef dangerous? Try lethal lettuce!

"Fresh raw vegetables like lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and green onions were responsible for the illness or deaths of nearly 19,000 people nationwide over a five-year period. Vegetables are nearly as dangerous as under-cooked meat when it comes to transmitting deadly food illnesses like E. coli, salmonella and hepatitis, according to a study of federal outbreak records. . . . No other foodstuff came close to the threats posed by vegetables and meats, the study found. Seafood like raw oysters and tuna was a distant third, causing fewer than 3,000 deaths or illnesses."

I always knew there was a good reason not to eat your vegetables. I am vindicated. Take that, you self-righteous uber-health-conscious vegans!



Followup: There are some articles like this online that say that washing veggies helps, but it has to be fairly extreme (5-minute) washing. If the veggies were grown using a lot of manure for fertilizer, those nasty microbes in the manure can travel right into the plant. So much for healthy organic produce, eh? We're not buying bagged lettuce any more, and I wash my veggies and strip off the outer leaves on iceberg lettuce, but that's about all we do.

4 comments:

SingletrackJenny (formerly known as IronJenny) said...

HA! love that! Although I will still stand behind my Cobb Salad with bacon.... ;-)

Charles said...

But I like my vegetables :-(

Jonah Holland said...

Nancy, I really didn't need to know that! I feed my kids vegetables all the time! we're vegetarian ...now what am i supposed to do?
Any word on if double or tripple washing (or washing with soap for that matter) helps any

Nancy Toby said...

I don't know for sure! I think in some foods like lettuce the E.coli gets all through the plant and washing doesn't help. I need to do some more research on this!!!

Kind of scary, eh??

I'm pretty sure the ice cream and chocolate supply is safe.... at least it's never gotten me sick yet.