new outbreak of ecoli

The lastest items shown in our news stated that the water supply is to blame. The ecoli gets in the water and is absorbed into the body of the plants. Because of this it can not be washed off. If it was just from unclean hands, then the ecoli could be washed off the leaves.

This is amazing to me and hard to understand. How it can pass thru cell walls to infect the whole plant is mindboggling.

When I consider the gardens I've grown in my long'ish life.. and used chicken, rabbit, cow, horse manure tilled into the ground.. I should have died long ago.

And the ecoli in the water supply.. I'da thunk that the chlorine would kill that off.

I think a lot of it is for legal purposes. The last I heard was not to use canned spinach or to try to cook the spinach. I thought washing got rid of it, and in case that failed, heat would get rid of it. I feel really bad for the farmers that are taking a bath because of this. Hopefully, they have crop insurance coverage.
And what makes all the other vegetables and fruits safer?
Peggy

The FDA reported that washing does not affect ecoli. In this case the culprit is the plastic bag that helped create the environment for the ecoli to crowd. Because why pay so much for bagged spinach when you can by the real deal... oh yeah, now I remember...lazyiness

at 6.30pm est the latest cnn news was this outbreak came from an organic company in california. current thinking is the plants were watered with water which was polluted by h157 which the plants of course drew up into their cells thus washing the leaves is to no avail. this is the equivilent of the oriental practice of using "nightsoil" to fertilize vegetables and gives the same effects to any vegetable eaten raw when those those methods of fertilization are used.

thats a shame, for organics to take another hit. first we are told that chemical sprays and fertilizers are harmful, now the produce without chemicals is harmful as well. smells like sabotage.
hey jack, did you see the rib pics on the open forum topic; 'frustrated with rubs'?
natural water sources dont have chlorine, and bagged spinach is simply fresh spinach, in a bag, usually with plenty of air holes. perhaps the bags are air tight, which is good for ecoli, right?

coffeebluff,
here's the problem as i have pieced it together. the usda and the fda allows voluntary compliance with the growers end of things. the heavy rains in california enter into this also. irrigation sources were polluted with e-coli which of course the plants took up into their cells. this is no big deal if the product is cooked to at least 165f for 15 seconds. this also explains why in classic oriental cooking you very seldom find raw leafy veggies as they used to fertilize with "nightsoil" (nice word means human waste). problem occurs when you eat those veggies raw.
with the e-coli in the cell the bag don't matter and washing won't affect it (kind of like e-coli on strawberries and raspberries can't be washed away but that is due to the nooks and crannies in them)
the reason it doesn't affect things like pears and apples and that kind of thing is more due to the size of the plant as the tree system dilutes the total load to what is being eaten.
i guess the nice thing is e-coli isn't like botulism. the e-coli doesn't produce the toxins like botulism does and no amount of cooking can change the botulism toxins..
so bagging in this out break doesn't mean anything as it is all in the cell structure.
jack

quote:

Originally posted by prisonchef:
they used to fertilize with "nightsoil" (nice word means human waste). problem occurs when you eat those veggies raw.

Back in the early 90's, my rural septic system needed to be upgraded from the original 1940 design.
I wanted to pipe my house over to the barn and drop the household waste into the manure holding pit, to save money. A new septic system was around $10,000.
I was mad at those "book learnt' feds" when they told me I would have to then treat my livestock manure, nearly a half million gallons yearly, as human waste, if I mixed the two together.

I see now, that altough rare, problems could occure.

the truly bad part is farmers who are not connected with this are being hurt. i just hope they have crop insurance but i guess that is just for failure to grow.
the really bad part is no one is saying these greens are safe if they are cooked just like ground beef is.
while food businesses are scary i have always felt that it would be safer to buy the 6 and the 8 on a craps table in vegas than it would be to put the same amount of money in farming. farmers truly have my respect!!!!!!
jack

I recently saw a show about a house design where they used the grey water from their washing to water their garden. I understand the grey water is water from washing clothes, dishes, your body. If you have an ecoli bacteria in your garments which is very easy to have, especially if you use cold water to wash the items, that could be taken up into your plants. That sure wouldn't be a safe practice.
I don't know why animal manure isn't an apparent problem.
Peggy