Whole Foods Lifestyle - Recall on Bagged Spinach--E Coli outbreak

Widespread problems across the US with an as-yet unknown source. Info is here:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/09/15/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html

Do what you need to, but with the baby in the house I'm tossing mine until they figure it out.

Anne

It is the top of the FDA page as well, for those who prefer to get it straight from the source. They do have an RSS feed so you can get the headlines as soon as they update.

http://www.fda.gov

Anne

So far, the packages are not affecting my state (California) but they think the spinach was grown here (up north). Very scary--I've been eating spinach in my salads every day for lunch for the past month.

Not true that its not affecting CA. One of the cases they are investigating is in Riverside - she is one of my sisters bridesmaids. They initially thought it was tofu, but then started tracing it back to the spinach. She was in the hospital for 10 days and on emergency dialysis.

Very scary. I think a similar thing happened with bagged lettuce last year. I've been eating frozen spinach instead of fresh.

Yeesh, Riverside is too close! I'll be throwing away that bag of spinach (half full) when I get home from work. I didn't bring a lunch today because DH and I have a lunch date on Fridays.

I'm in Tenn and I'm still going to toss out my bagged lettuce. Darn, I put that stuff in everything!

I think I might try my hand at growing spinach and lettuce in the spring.

yikes! riverside??? (I'm in OC). Bagged spinach was a weekly staple in my house. I guess I'll have to wait till it's all sorted out

Very scary. I usually don't buy bagged stuff much, and since we grew our own lettuce and spinach this summer, I haven't had any (knowingly!) in awhile.

Anybody know if this applies to the organic spinach that is sold in the hard(ish) plastic boxes? I have 2 HUUUUGE boxes in my fridge and eat it at least twice a day. :(

Mel

Well, my bag is half finished so I guess I will continue eating it. I hate that this might scare people off of eating something good for them though.

I am throwing out the bags in my fridge now!! But, I love spinach as a salad and I love the lettuce in bags as well. Is there any way to rinse these items with something to kill e coli?

Rinsing does not kill e coli. Cooking thoroughly does, but thats not going to help if you like your spinach raw, and this isn't surefire...its best to not eat the bagged spinach products for now.

The lettuce in bags (as long as its a blend that doesn't contain spinach) is fine...its just spinach that has the problem.

They do recommend that you wash bagged salad products, though (which I never do).

The identified the company that provided the tainted spinach. They put it out under various brand names including Rave Spinach, Natural Selection Foods, Dole, Earthbound Farm, Trader Joe's, Ready Pac and Green Harvest.

I wonder if Trader Joes will take it back? I'll try it tomorrow...what a drag...I eat a LOT of salad...god forbid I might have to wash a regular head of lettuce...OH the humanity! Ok...maybe for a little while...in the hospital for 10 days on emergency dialysis sounds pretty awful. Even just diarrhea...not a fun weekend plan.

Ladies, i'd like to make a recommendation.

It probably wouldn't be of much comfort right now, but one thing that i've done for quite a while now is wash all my produce (and you can do it with meat too) in a Clorox bath. Mix 1 TBL of Clorox (others may have additives) for every 1 gallon of water, soak for 30 minutes, (this kills the bacteria) then soak in clean water for 10 minutes. Rinse well, dry and refrigerate. There is a lot of info on it if you Google it.

As to the organics, (which is simply no use of chemicals or tampered genetics) transmission of E-coli is through manure that farmers use as fertilizer. I would imagine that this same fertilizer is used for organics so it wouldn't make any difference.

I also have to wonder, what difference does it make if it's prepacked or loose? Any particular field is not designated for just prepacked. The original spinach could end up loose or prepacked. I wouldn't want any of it.

If you haven't already thrown your unopened bag of spinach out, my husband says you can take it to the store for a refund. I haven't checked this out myself, though (I didn't ask him where he got his info!).

I received an exchange from Trader Joes with no problems. (didn't need a refund)

Ok whats up with the spinich now?

You can see the latest from the FDA - dated 9/29 - here: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01474.html

What I heard on the news today (10/2) is that fresh spinach is back in the stores, and bagged spinach for places other than California has no problems. Frozen and canned spinach have never been affected in this recall.