 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >> Still, the system of growing and delivering food in the United States is a complicated one, with more than enough room for error, added Imperato, a former New York City health commissioner. "There are a lot of places where things can go wrong, and there has to be constant vigilance," he said.
The lettuce recalled by the Nunes Co. looked like it had been irrigated with contaminated water. And that can happen. Feed cattle, which have E. coli bacteria in their intestinal tracts, are often raised in lots near where produce is grown, and their feces is disposed of in pits. Seepage from those pits into an aquifer can contaminate the water supply.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is also testing the company's irrigation water, and results should be available late Wednesday or Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
Text Continues Below
The month-long E. coli outbreak in spinach occurred in products packaged in plastic bags. Plastic increases humidity levels, permitting the organism to thrive, Imperato said.
Most of the onus for making sure fresh produce is safe lies with the government and with the agriculture industry. Yet thorough oversight can be tough because produce, such as spinach, that appears in a bag on a supermarket shelf can often come from a variety of fields, due to the centralized nature of the agriculture business. And this blending of produce can make it easier for contamination from one field to wind up in packages shipped throughout the country.
Food-safety advocates are calling for more stringent regulations, and they say a single agency should be in charge of making sure all food is safe.
"If you raise spinach in the Salinas Valley, and it's in 40 states in a few days, you can't have a system that says, 'We won't do anything until somebody gets sick,'" Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy for Consumer Federation, told the Associated Press.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >>
|
.gif)
