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Comment by craftyguy | Hacker News Reader

It seems like no one learned anything after the last one 5 months ago: https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-04-18/index.html

IIRC the first outbreak was from farmers in Yuma watering their fields with water that had been contaminated by runoff from a large cattle farm upstream.

(The article says the two aren't related, but it seems like more than a coincidence unless romaine lettuce is more succeptible to contracting and retaining e. coli somehow..)

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Consumer Reports had a more thorough article than the short write up by the CDC. I find it frustrating the CDC blanket points the fjnger at lettuce without disclosing root cause. People confuse the fact that plants are not the source, animal feces is (most likely in this case). Just as s it was last time...

https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/what-growers-are...

But it's still correct to be wary of plants, the fact that you typically eat them raw makes them the most common source of infection.

Growing lettuce in your garden bears very few risks. Buying lettuce from a store also carriers very free risks if you know the source. Plants are significantly less risk than any red meat or white meat.

The way the CDC presents this makes it appear, to the uniformed, that this is a plant borne illness - of which it is not. It's almost certain it is human created through misuse of fecal matter disposal or fertilizer.

I am pretty much always going to throw a cut of meat on the grill or in a pan on the stove. This action brings the food up to a temperature where it tends to kill/denature a lot of the bad bugs in the food.

I'm likely to just rinse off an apple or lettuce, which may or may not successfully clean the food.

"Tends to kill". So you're saying you always cook all meats at or above recommended internal temperatures? Most people don't enjoy meat overcooked / well done - and that is the conflicting reference point here. Do you eat your steak even medium-well? Then it's not guaranteed to be free from food borne illness and not cooked according to safe food handling instructions by said CDC.

Apples are far less likely to ever carry pathogens because they're harvested from a tree, off the ground and tree farms are not fertilized with feces. And even if they are in proximity you're failing to understand that if a tree has a contaminated water source the entire tree acts as a filter prior to the fruit - a lettuce does not.

Again, misinformation and misunderstanding of the root cause showcase highly in your comment which was my criticism of the original disclosure by the CDC.

Even well done steak is not guaranteed to be free of food borne illness. You really need to know two variables - temperature and time, and one objective - kill rate. Time is the reason that it is safer to eat a sous vide rare pork chop than a grilled rare pork chop.

Also, it’s far more delicious that way.

This action brings the food up to a temperature where it tends to kill/denature a lot of the bad bugs in the food.

Unfortunately that's not enough, because cooking temperatures don't always denature the toxins that the bugs produce, which is what the real problems come from.

While true, for the most part toxic subsistences won't build up to dangerous levels before the food reaches a point where it is obviously spoiled. The problem with E. Coli is that it starts self-reproducing in your gut, so even a small dose can turn deadly over time. This is also why simple washing is not always sufficient, as it can be difficult to completely eradicate a biofilm on a delicate leaf without destroying the food in the process.

> Unfortunately that's not enough, because cooking temperatures don't always denature the toxins that the bugs produce, which is what the real problems come from.

Isn't the problem that the "bugs" produce the toxins while thriving inside your body? If you kill them through cooking, they won't be producing anything while inside you when dead.

This problem is most commonly found in rice.

Cooking the rice doesn't kiil the bugs. Not chilling the rice quickly enough allows the bugs to produce toxins. Reheating the rice doesn't destroy the toxin.

https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can...

>This action brings the food up to a temperature where it tends to kill/denature a lot of the bad bugs in the food.

That action may bring it up to a safe temperature. The fact that people die from e. coli poisoning from undercooked meat all the time shows that this is not foolproof.

>I'm likely to just rinse off an apple or lettuce, which may or may not successfully clean the food.

Which is an absolute non-issue if that food hasn't been sprayed with feces in the first place, as the parent poster pointed out. You can't get e. coli from unwashed vegetables unless someone has sprayed animal (including human) feces on it first.

You're missing the point.

You cook meat the vast majority of the time. This massively reduces the risk of foodborne illness.

Lettuce on the other hand, is eaten raw. As a sibling comment mentioned, at best lettuce gets a rinse, if that.

So while the source isn't actually the lettuce itself, lettuce is the perfect carrier. This is why produce is the source of half of US food poisonings, while meat and poultry only cause 22[0]. You can get pedantic about the original source, but from the end consumer's perspective this does not matter one iota. It doesn't really matter much whether or not the ecoli on your lettuce grew there, or was deposited by cow feces, it matters that there's ecoli on your freaking lettuce.

0. https://www.vox.com/2015/3/6/8158289/food-poisoning

I'm not missing the point at all because it's highly unlikely that home food prep adequately cooks food. It's a well known fact more people take on risk of eating undercooked meat and shellfish by choice. And this is part of my original point. You're conflating things that aren't true because of a failure to understand the root cause.

Maybe this can help you educate yourself: http://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-sa...

Ecoli doesn't "grow" on food as you claim. I think you're missing substantial understanding of the subject matter. And your source? Far taken out of context. Try recent findings from historical data compilation by the CDC in 2018:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6710a1.htm

So, your statistic is wrong as of latest compilation of CDC data.

"Amongst 1,281 outbreaks in which the food reported could be classified into a single food category, fish were the most commonly implicated category (222 outbreaks [17%]), followed by dairy (136 [11%]) and chicken (123 [10%]). The food categories responsible for the most outbreak-associated illnesses were chicken (3,114 illnesses [12%]), pork (2,670 [10%]), and seeded vegetables (2,572 [10%]). Multistate outbreaks comprised only 3% of all outbreaks reported but accounted for 11% of illnesses, 34% of hospitalizations, and 54% of deaths."

Again - what you cited is not true.

And a quick overview of common contaminants linked to foods - you'll find meats most prevalent and cross contamination by meats to other foods as the highest risk:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/food-poisonin...

That may be true, but people also know there’s generally a risk to eating undercooked meat. Restaurants and food products tell you, if you undercook this, you might get sick. People don’t assume there’s a risk to eating lettuce.

Plant based infection ranks highly because of the risks from rice, and those risks are present even if you cook it correctly and properly reheat left-overs.

The CDC is saying to avoid romaine lettuce until we learn more about the outbreak, with a promise to update the advice as more information becomes available.

That seems quite an appropriate way to proceed and does not imply that the lettuce itself is the cause.

The way it is presented gives zero background and conflates the issue. You realize the CDC did this last year as well? Did you hear about it? Probably not.

It's also interesting there is little to no showcase if the turkey issue right before US Thanksgiving: https://www.nola.com/news/2018/11/just-in-time-for-thanksgiv...

> I find it frustrating the CDC blanket points the fjnger at lettuce without disclosing root cause.

Uh, they disclose the root cause, the specific strain of STEC.

You are upset they aren't highlighting an intermediate level between the root cause and the actual actionable consumer information.

More that people will form the wrong conclusion - vegetables are naturally prone to e. coli - because they didn't point out that thus had to come from an outside source.

No need to speculate if we've not nailed which source, but we can _highlight_ the current lack of actionable info rather than let people assume one.

CDC alerts have a fairly narrow, action-driving purpose; every extraneous word increases the number of people that tune it out, with negative public health consequences.

Complaining that they aren't adding information that—true as it is—is irrelevant to the task at hand to the alert is, quite literally, asking to make the immediate public health issue worse, and for more people to die.

Isn't it more susceptible? The structure of Romaine is such that contaminants can fairly easily get "inside", but are not easily washed away.

The way the leaves are bunched together makes it hard to clean. And secondly it is not cooked before eating.

That's a property of most (all?) lettuces, but here we are with two romaine-related instances in 5 months.

Interestingly enough, bean sprouts are eaten raw, are not (thoroughly) cleaned before eating, and must be, by definition, held at an unsafe temperature to sprout.

They also cause a bunch of foodborne illness. I think it's a pretty clear connection.

I blanch bean sprouts before freezing them for storage and then toss them in something I’m frying or boiling. Seems to work for me.

So you eat them not raw.

I might toss a few onto something I’m having by chance right then but I typically by them in advance of when I need them and don’t want to have them rot in the fridge

Sure, but why not other types of lettuce like red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, or butter lettuce?

Apparently Romaine is grown in exactly two places, one for summer and one for winter.

I believe the word 'regions' would be more appropriate.

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