Spinach, Poor Spinach
On the train ride to Baltimore today, I was listening to NPR’s On the Media. On the program, they had a guest discussing the success and failure of the spinach industry (if it is an industry in an of itself) in marketing their product. One of the many points made during the current E. coli outbreak in spinach crops. The guest, Michael Pollan, suggests that if the outbreak was in contaminated hamburger, which has happened more than once, the government’s response would have been completely different.
I think this guy might be on to something.
Escherichia coli O157:H7, the strain that is making everyone sick, is a micro-organism that grows in the small intestines of mammals, largely cows. It only infects plants like spinach through contaminated water, run-off from fields and such.
The last time the hamburger supply was contaminated with E. coli, the government did not tell the American public en masse to throw out hamburger; instead, the government told Americans to “cook your hamburger thoroughly”. This time, with spinach, the government is instructing that all bagged spinach be thrown out. Why the difference? Certainly, it is more likely that spinach will be consumed raw rather than cooked, creating a bigger health risk. But isn’t the risk of undercooked hamburger just as great? Why not tell everyone to cook their spinach for a while instead of wasting tons of produce? Wouldn’t it be more consistent to either throw out both potentially contaminated beef or cook potentially contaminated spinach? What’s going on USDA?
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think the beef lobby has a bit more clout than the Popeye lobby.
