The likely culprit in the E. coli outbreak, says our favorite food detective Michael Pollan in the San Jose Mercury News, is our highly centralized, industrial system, which creates the perfect conditions for spreading contamination over a wide area. “If the whole country is washing its lettuce in the same sink, any problem in that sink is going to affect a lot more people,” he says.
Jerry Welcome, a muckety-muck at the United Fresh Produce Association, retorts that consumers are safer eating bagged spinach processed in a climate-controlled factory, staffed by machines and workers in sterile uniforms, than they are chomping on bunches from a farmers market.
Huh. Somehow, I don’t buy this. Which do you trust more, factories or people? Don’t get me wrong, I heart technology — I’m most definitely not a Luddite. But I don’t think my food should be produced in the same way as my iPod, PDA, or laptop.
We’ve been eating leafy greens for thousands of years straight from the fields, but only from special prewashed, gas-infused salad bags for under 30. First of all, when’s the last time you heard about a nationwide E. coli outbreak caused by a farmers market? More importantly, it seems to me, is that when a farmer looks you in the eye and takes your cash for her spinach, she has a personal incentive not to make you sick. Underpaid factory workers who can’t even afford to buy the organic spinach they’re bagging? Less so.
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
Humor:
September 21st, 2006 at 1:42 pm
By the way, Nina Planck has an op-ed on the New York Times today, pointing out how this virulent E. Coli strain was made possible by the acidification of cattle’s digestive systems, thanks to the unnatural corn/grain diet which they are fed.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:52 pm
I bet the time we’ve spent eating food from “special prewashed, gas-infused salad bags” is much less than 30 years. Does anyone know for sure? My guess it’s less than 10 years.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:32 am
The article referenced above says that packaged greens, a category the industry calls “value-added” produce, was invented by a Salinas company, Fresh Harvest, in the late 1970s. I was surprised it had been around that long, too.