Health Warning Update
The FDA is advising that consumers eat NO raw spinach whatsoever. I mentioned this in comments back on the original post on this subject, but it seemed important enough to make a new post on as well. The E. coli outbreak is spreading at this point, and they still do not have the source pinpointed.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Food and Drug Administration said Monday consumers should not eat any fresh spinach as investigators look for the source of E. coli bacteria that has sickened at least 109 people.
The initial FDA advisory late last week focused on bagged spinach.
Dr. Robert Brackett of the FDA told CNN, "We've expanded the warning actually to all of the fresh spinach. That's because we learned that some of the companies that produced the consumer bag spinach also produced larger food-service size.
Brackett said another concern is that restaurants or stores may use consumer-size bags of spinach to stock their salad bars or bulk bins.
"We want to make sure consumers are aware that they don't consume any of the fresh spinach. We don't know whether it came from the bag or another state. We just don't have the focus down that much yet," he said.
Spinach producers are voluntarily recalling their products. Brackett said the FDA does not have the power to order a recall but is working with the producers.
They do have the power to seize contaminated products, but Brackett said investigators can't do that until they determine the exact source of the contamination.
"It could come from the irrigation water, animals in the field, from the workers, from a piece of equipment that's contaminated. We just don't know," he said. "Until we figure that out, we don't want to go down the wrong road. We're looking at all possibilities."
So if you need a spinach fix, I'd advise going the Popeye route.
By Quilly Mammoth, Monday, 18 September , 2006 @ 4:53 pm
“Health foods”…bah!