>   PS  Last night, my hubby and a friend of ours was asking me how 
> spinach and onions are getting the ecoli.  I read something about that 
> a while back, but forgot exactly what the deal was.  If it's 
> appropriate subject matter for this list, could someone re-inform 
> me???  Seems to me that the farmers were using some kind of animal 
> matter (in chemical
> form??) for pest-control, or something like that.  ?????
> 

Grain-fed cattle manure was the most likely source of the problem:

<<The source of the E. coli O157:H7 blamed in the current outbreak is
unknown. It may be irrigation water reclaimed from sewage treatment. It may
be unsanitary conditions on the farm. But there is increasing suspicion that
the cause may be water runoff from the many cattle farms near the fields in
the Salinas Valley of California, where produce tainted with the E. coli has
caused eight outbreaks of illness since 1995.

Water contaminated with E. coli from cow manure may have been used for
irrigation or may have been deposited on the fields by heavy spring rains
and flooding.

Dr. Trevor Suslow, a microbiologist at the University of California at
Davis, called this case "the catalyst, the tipping point.''

"This is a culmination of incidents that have been going on for 10 years and
cattle have become the primary focus,'' Dr. Suslow said. "Data from the last
23 years clearly demonstrate the potential for crop contamination from
pathogenic E. coli in the watershed."

So, everyone, it seems, is aware that cattle are the problem, but no one
appears to understand that it is the corn feeding of cattle and the
subsequent hyper-acidification of their GI tracts that allows this toxic
strain to develop. Unless the cattle are corn fed, there isn't a problem.>>

Source:
Dr. Michael Eades' blog
September 27, 2006
More on E. coli O157:H7
www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=286