Is Bagged Lettuce Safe?

After another bagged lettuce recall announced today, people are wondering if it's safe to eat bagged lettuce anymore.

Happyhippie.com sat down with Mr. Ross, an organic farmer in the Santa Cruz area to find out how this contamination could be happening.

Mr. Ross explained that it doesn't matter if the farm is organic or not, as contamination risks are present at both types of farms. "It really boils down to how each farm is run, how their properties are protected, and what form of processing they use.", Ross explained.

To present a simple scenario, Ross said that organic lettuce, grown on organic soil, is clean and untainted. However, say a dog comes in from a neighboring farm, and does his dirty business in the middle of the field. If the farmer uses machinery to pick the lettuce, the fecal matter is instantly chopped up and churned in with the lettuce.

Bagged lettuce producers then send the lettuce to be cleaned and chopped up, before being bagged. Since the cleaning process does not necessarily get rid of the ecoli, not only the lettuce now have the offending bacteria, but now the machinery is contaminated as well.

Contamination can also come from other sources such as nearby pastures with cows. Either direct contact from cows, or indirect water run-off with the contaminants, or even a dead rat in the water supply are all easy ways for ecoli to spread.

Ross states, "It seems backwards and labor intensive, but really hand-picking lettuce is probably the best way to avoid a contamination. If a picker sees a load of crap in the field, they are obviously not going to touch it, or pick up lettuce growing next to it. This whole lettuce is also a safer bet, because there is no risk of it being contaminated from machinery."

Today a recall was stated from Dole, as the company said that salad mix that tested positive for E. coli . The test has triggered a recall in at least nine states, prompting new produce fears almost exactly a year after a nationwide spinach scare.

Last year, an E. coli outbreak traced to bagged baby spinach sold under the Dole brand was blamed for the deaths of three people and for sickening hundreds more across the U.S. Authorities ultimately identified a central California cattle ranch next to spinach fields belonging to one of Dole's suppliers as being the source of the bacteria.