Tracking the source is harder than you think

But how did these seemingly innocent leaves become deadly?

The US Food and Drug Administration is investigating an outbreak of E. coli. Coli in several states, which has sickened 32 people, 13 of whom were hospitalized, in 11 states.

The news comes several months after an outbreak of E. coli unrelated to romaine lettuce, which killed 210 people in 36 states. Ninety-six had to be hospitalized and five died. This incident – the largest epidemic of E. Coli in several US states for a dozen years – has been attributed to the growing region of Yuma, Arizona.

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We sent men to the moon. Many of us carry tiny computers in our pockets. So why can not we keep romaine lettuce safe and clean? Here are some reasons why lettuce is so vulnerable and why it can be difficult to locate the source of a bacterial outbreak.

America lettuce hearts, especially women

As a result of the national health trend adopted by the healthy millennials and the aging of the baby boom generation, the consumption of fresh vegetables, as opposed to frozen or long-life varieties, is at stake. rise. Added to this is the growing popularity of salad-based restaurants, such as Tender Greens and Sweetgreen, and the growing integration of salads into the menus of fast-food chains.

According to the most recent data from the global market research firm Mintel, 70% of the vegetables sold in the United States in 2016 were fresh, up 13% from 2011, but since then, the share freshly cut salad was 39%. What's in Stores Fresh vegetables are expected to increase by 9% by 2021 and freshly cut salads by 33%.

"The purchase of domestic vegetables is universal and highly motivated by fresh purchases of produce." 97% of consumers bought fresh options last month, Mintel said.

The group most affected by the outbreak of E. Coli of romaine lettuce is made up of women. According to the CDC, 65% of people who are sick as a result of this episode are women. Fear women eat more salad than men.

Blame it on mother nature

The fields where the products are grown are subject to the whims of Mother Nature and her animals. Fruits and vegetables grow in the soil and can be fertilized with manure. Insects and birds fly around. Animals can run through even fenced fields – or defecate in rivers and lakes used for irrigation of neighboring farms. Growing in the open air offers bacteria many opportunities to get into the picture.

"The products are grown in nature, and they can not be free of bacteria, viruses, and parasites," said Keith Schneider, an expert in food safety at the University of Florida. "We are doing our best, farmers are jumping through a lot of expensive hoops to make the food as clean as possible, but nature can intervene."

Lettuce is naturally unprotected

Unlike some of its fruit and vegetable brethren, lettuce has nothing to protect it. The lack of peels and peels – which one finds on, for example, a watermelon and a cucumber – gives bacteria innumerable points of entry. A lettuce head has tons of nooks and crannies to hide, which makes leafy vegetables much more vulnerable than other thin-skinned products, but strong and easy to wash, like tomatoes.

"The population chooses to eat inherently riskier foods," said Matthew Stasiewicz, assistant professor of food safety applied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "In reality, there is no activity in life that involves no risk."

Distance can make the problem grow faster

The days when we only produce neighboring farms all year round are over. As the national food supply becomes more sophisticated, we are able to grow food in a central location and then package, store and ship it in the United States.

Despite the ease with which social media and 24-hour news cycles can spread warnings about epidemics, tracking food from point A to point E remains complicated.

Convenience can lead to illness

The extra phase of treating romaine lettuce – whether it is chopped or simply wrapped – offers more chances for bacteria to infiltrate.

"If all the lettuce in the field is clean, take it to the packing center and the material is contaminated," Schneider said. "Everything that happens above the belt can be contaminated."

A raw case

Raw foods, like lettuce, miss out on a cooking phase that can kill bacteria. What the industry has called the "destruction stage" is preventing companies from getting rid of the particles that cause food poisoning. For example, applesauce, which is heat-treated as part of the preparation, is much less likely to be a problem than Red Delicious raw apple. This is why health officials advocate the importance of properly cooking meat and poultry and avoiding unpasteurized dairy products. For products, washing is the key.

It may take some time before the disease is declared

People made sick by romaine lettuce may not have reported it yet. The average time is two to three weeks.

"One of the major challenges in identifying sources of foodborne illness is that people eat a lot of food," Stasiewicz said. "There is also a major problem in remembering what they eat.When you eat a complex food, such as a sandwich or a burrito, you might not even know what you are eating."

Evidence is often thrown away

The fresh produce has a short shelf life, especially salads in quickly bunkered pouches, so by the time the inspector goes home, the culprit would have been long since, er, shaken.

Although you know what your favorite breakfast cereals are, it is likely that you do not remember the name of the company that makes your lettuce sachet. Forget the memory of the brand of lettuce heads or hearts you buy. This complicates the tracking.

"Without a bag, a lot number for a farm, you do not know where it was packed and what farm it came from," Schneider said.

And even if, miraculously, you still had the lettuce soiled, with the name of the package or the farm, the harvest in the field at the moment the inspectors arrived would already be harvested.

Solving the problem is not just a matter of "CSI lettuce", according to Schneider. "When you want to find the smoking gun pathogen, he's gone."

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