How salad became a major source of food poisoning in the US

In this case, individuals who eat more that 5 servings of fruits and vegetables probably also exhibit a whole host of behaviors that contribute to this outcome. Essentially, they are not a representative sample of the population at large, but rather a sub-group who is "healthful" in a whole bunch of ways.

You don’t avoid concern about increasing food borne pathogens in lettuce because of heart disease. The issue is the economic and regulatory environment that is making contaminated lettuce a thing.

If it’s like E. coli problems in meat, the primary contributor is poor production, handling and packaging process.

Your general point is reasonable enough, but this arithmetic per se is not really supportable. (a) There is no breakdown there of the number of people who ate > 5 vs. < 3 servings of vegetables (either among the general population or among heart disease sufferers), and (b) the risk number is about developing heart disease at all, not deaths (without even mentioning (c) these are cohort studies showing correlations, not proving causal relationships).

It is possible that e.g. serious heart-disease cases likely to cause death result from causes unrelated to vegetable consumption, while many non-vegetable-eaters develop minor heart disease cases which they would not have if they had eaten vegetables, but which still do not result in death.

Likewise, it is likely that of the 610,000 deaths, many (most?) of them were of people eating > 3 servings of vegetables per day.

And there's a whole thing to say about frigerator hygiene - they are not sterile just because of lower temperatures, while they are hard to clean unless turned off, because water won't dry, whereas they are hard to turn off, when they are always filled. I'm being pedantic, I know.

It's mixed type greens, mustards, lettuce etc. Cut when leaves are about the size of the business part of a spoon. Cut it so it comes back and you can get 3 or 4 cuttings per planting. Plant it successively (i.e every week or two plant another section) so it's constantly available.

Faster to harvest, more sustained harvest, and it tastes better than lettuce because you can put little greens like collards and arugula in the mix. Indoors you'd avoid the insect troubles that plague these tiny greens outside as well.

FWIW I've seen the same behaviors you described in most developing economies where people don't seem to trust the larger system. I don't know if the end result is any better - food borne illnesses are still quite common despite these 'heuristics' (as you aptly named them), but there might be far more causes than just unclean veggies.

Additionaly it seems like only textbook are Americans using paper towels to open bathroom doors after washing their hands. My mom instilled that at a young age (I'm 36 now). Now it irritates me to see a Dyson hand dryer, and have to open the bathroom door by pulling it.

Poor living and working conditions for migrant farmworkers is a contributing factor to outbreaks like this. Workers who are present illegally or are otherwise marginalized and taken advantage of, even if they are part of legal guest-worker programs, suffer conditions where poor housing facilities or the need to work under great time pressures leads to inadequate sanitation.

A 2017 story [0] illustrates this:

>Kristina Espinoza, a labor department investigator who recently visited the farm, described a "makeshift labor camp" that was "dangerous" and "unsanitary," according to court documents. [...] Gonzalez had workers shower in nine stalls inside a cargo container; there was no functional sewage system, so wastewater accumulated underneath the container, Espinoza said. The electrical cord used to light the facility was exposed to standing water, posing a risk of electrocution, according to court documents. The workers shared one toilet in the trailer and had access to port-a-potties.

[0] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-farmworker-abuse-20170...

Just because it's already chopped and in a bag doesn't mean it suddenly doesn't need rinsing.

If I recall, not rinsing pre-chopped lettuce was one of the things pointed out to Chipotle after their recent debacle, that may have helped avoid making customers sick.

Not sure what you mean? Why can't you wash it?

Carry on as you are? You're more likely to get hit by a bus than catch E. Coli from a salad.

A silly comparison, but it does raise the concern that even those that watch what they eat and try to be healthy can't escape the widespread bacterial problems in food in modern industrial food processing.

This is why I hate big-food. They use any and all opportunities to mislead about what truly is going on.

I just spent winter away from my usual SF bay area haunts and have had to shop at a grocery store more along the lines of a Safeway with a small selection of overpriced corporate organics on a little island in the produce department. This stuff is maybe slightly better than the conventional produce sold alongside it, it's pretty awful, and really helps me appreciate why most of the public doesn't seem to see any difference with organic vs. conventional outside of the price.

It really is an exceptional privilege to have access to quality organic produce in the USA.

Add a simple vinaigrette to that, and tell me when to show up for dinner.

You are absolutely correct in your assessment of vegetable quality. Everything is bred for transportability, appearance, and shelf life, then flavor and nutrition go out the window.

It's exactly the same story as the Red Delicious apple. They were bred to be very red, not at all sour, and to not bruise too easily. So they look good, but taste like garbage.

I have noticed the same devolution in watermelons. You used to be able to get huge, arm-filling watermelons, juicy and sweet, but shot through with big black seeds. Now at the supermarket they're all seedless, nearly flavorless, and small.

Same with strawberries. They used to be small, but intensely flavored, and ranging from very sweet to slightly sour. Now you can find them as big as your clenched fist, but then bite into one, and it just tastes like dirty water.

I don't buy food to look at it. It seems like the greatest minds of the last agricultural generation have all been wasted on making foods look like they'll taste good, and look like they're worth the money, but then become a total disappointment to your tongue.

I buy the whole mushrooms for that reason and simply because they're cheaper.

Yeah the difference is the head of lettuce is alive and the chopped stuff is dead. Better is it's been 'washed' AKA inoculated with whatever bacteria is living in the wash water.

Well then carry on as you are...