E.Coli - Getting to the Bottom of It
IF YOU FOLLOW A HEALTHY DIET you probably eat a lot of spinach; this is
almost a universal truism. Spinach is on the short list of the most
nutritious and beneficial vegetables on the planet. It's an excellent
source of vitamins A, B2, B6, C and K, manganese, folate, magnesium, iron
and calcium, and a good source of dietary fiber. Like most dark greens it
is also a good source of omerga-3 fatty acids, and not too shabby in the
vitamin E and protein departments. For those who follow a low-carb,
low-sugar, or or Paleo diet, spinach is especially important as a great
source of potassium that's low in sugar (unlike bananas or dried plums).
In studies on mice, spinach extracts have been shown to reduce or slow the
division of stomach and skin cancers, and in a study on human females in
the late 80s, spinach intake was shown to be inversely related to
incidences of breast cancer. Spinach has been also used to combat colon
cancer with noteworthy results, and the versatile vegetable is now being
examined for its powers in combatting osteoporosis, heart disease,
arthritis, and other diseases. No wonder the Florentine Green was Popeye's
favorite food.
It's not without its risks, as we discovered last month. Actually, some of
us were already aware of one risk: Vegetarians and organic food buyers are
well-familiar with the findings of the Environmental Working Group's 2006
report "Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce," which listed spinach
among the top twelve foods to carry pesticide residue. This (along with the
plant's tendency to retain sand and grit in its leaves) was the reason we
were all careful to buy only organically-produced spinach, and to wash it
throroughly before cooking.
Chain Reaction
The recent outbreak was a very different thing. E. Coli isn't a pesticide,
and it can't be removed by washing. It's a common bacteria generally found
in the intestinal tracts of both humans and animals. You've probably eaten
it many times, although it's usually found in meat rather than vegetables.
E.coli causes very few serious problems generally speaking, because the
common variety is easily killed by your stomach acids. But the O157:H7
strain - the particular type involved in this outbreak - happens to produce
a powerful toxin that can cause fever, bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramps,
kidney failure, and even death.
When it comes to leafy greens, there have been 20 reported outbreaks of
E.coli contamination over the last decade (18 in lettuce, 2 in spinach),
most with no clear cause identified. A similar outbreak - also traced back
to spinach - occurred in November of 2005. But these cases have been
relatively minor by comparison, and without fatalities.
Last month's outbreak was different - it raced across the North American
continent like a chain reaction. After a small increase in ER visits and
paramedic calls during the second half of August, the tainted product
spread quickly through the US foodchain over the weeks that followed. By
September 20th, 146 people in 23 states had been infected. Eventually the
epidemic struck at least 187 people in 26 states (plus one person in
Canada), causing at least one death.
Search for the Source
Just as quickly, the search for the source began. It was frantic and
undirected at first - infected parties and their family members blamed the
stores that sold them tainted veggies, the stores then blamed the
distributors, the distributors blamed the packers, and everyone began
looking at the growers. Some companies, trying to make a snap decision
about the vector of this microbe, also eliminated organic milk from their
inventories.
Within a few days of initial reports, the FDA had linked the outbreak to
spinach from Natural Selection Foods LLC of Salinas Valley, California, a
company which packages both organic and conventionally grown spinach sold
under almost 40 brand names including Dole, Earthbound Farm, Fresh and
Easy, Farmers Market, Hy Vee, Nature's Basket, O Organic, Premium Fresh,
President's Choice, Ready Pac, and Trader Joe's. Natural Selection
responded quickly and responsibly by recalling all their product in the
pipeline, and several other organic farms followed suit even though no ties
had been made.
The food and grocery industries also responded promptly, pulling all fresh
and bagged spinach products from all US store shelves and restaurants -
roughly 13 million pounds - in record time. It really was quite phenomenal:
You couldn't buy spinach anywhere, even if you knew that all you needed to
do to kill the bacteria was to BOIL IT - that didn't matter.
Criminal Investigations and Conspiracy Theories
As of this writing (October 5th), a scattering of stores and restaurants in
some states are beginning to sell spinach again - grown in other parts of
the US, of course.
But it ain't over. The search for the source became a criminal
investigation this week, as federal agents began raiding produce companies
involved in the spinach supply chain. According to a CBS report, companies
do not need to have known that their products were contaminated in order to
be convicted under the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. Heads will
undoubtably roll.
Some writers have claimed that because some of the contaminated spinach
came from organic farms, the outbreak was a purposeful "attack" by the
industrial farming industry on small organic growers, intended to scare
people into believing that organic farming is unsafe. For a few people,
this will probably be the case. But while such a response might be icing on
the cake for Big Agra, it's more of a side-effect than a central strategy
(even for rat-bastards like the Frankenfarmers).
No, the recent spinach scare has an even more disgusting twist to it.
Who Let the Bugs In?
Long before E.coli was named as the culprit (or even known to exist),
scattered incidents of infection have been recorded - due to tainted beef.
E.coli and similar intestinal infections were once known as "Ptomaine
Poisoning" (a misnomer based on a theory we won't get into here). The point
is that undercooked beef has historically been the cause of most E.coli
infections, and that it's no secret. The typical vector goes like this: (1)
E.coli grows within the bowels of cattle; (2) the bacteria is then spread
through the feces of the infected animals; which (3) enters the human
foodchain by getting mixed in with beef during the butchering process.
According to the Center for Disease Control there are roughly 73,000 such
cases in the US - causing about 60 deaths - each year.
The most infamous outbreak is probably the one that struck the Jack in the
Box fastfood chain and Vons Companies in 1993, infecting over 600 people
and causing one girl to fall into a 42-day coma. (Jack has since cleaned up
his act, becoming a model of food safety for the fast food industry,
oxymoronic as that may sound).
But as we have seen, despite the fact that E.coli is common, the deadly
O157 strain is not typically found in humans. Nor does it naturally thrive
in leafy greens. Clearly, there's something special going on in the Salinas
Valley, where almost 75 percent of the country's spinach crop is grown. In
fact, both the FDA and California state officials have been inspecting
farms in the Salinas area since August 2005. Why? Because eight out of
nineteen past E.coli outbreaks have originated there.
This is where the story really gets interesting, and the reason for all the
finger-pointing comes to light.
The E.coli bacterium hasn't developed a sudden affinity for spinach. But it
just so happens that over the last decade or so, the potentially-deadly
O157 strain has become pandemic in the US cattle herd. The Journal of Dairy
Science reported in 2003 that up to 80 percent of all dairy cattle in the
US carry it. This is where the Jack in the Box Patty problem came from, and
it will turn out to be the source of the Salinas Spinach problem as well -
because it goes all the way back to the cows. Now you can see why some
companies responded to the spinach scare by pulling milk from the shelves -
they knew what they were dealing with, and they knew that the problem was
bigger than spinach.
How did the bacteria get into the cattle? Through grain-feeding.
As reported by Nina Planck in the New York Times (Sep 22), O157 thrives in
a biological niche which is new in the history of animal diets: "the
unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the
typical ration on most industrial farms. It's the infected manure from
these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the
bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms."
You see, grass-fed cattle don't have this problem. As Bill Kurtis of Red
Buffalo Ranch explains, until about 60 years ago, all cattle were
grass-fed. But then government corn subsidies created a glut in the corn
supply, and suddenly corn became the cheapest thing to feed cattle. Cheaper
is always better from a Frankenfarmer's perspective, and so it came to pass
that grain-fed beef became the norm. It remains so today.
Connect the dots and here we are, with a gradual return to our normal menu,
a re-assured public, and a criminal investigation looking into those farms
of the evil spinach producers. Everyone goes back to sleep. Meanwhile,
grain is still being getting shoveled into our cows, who keep doing what
cows do, and the Frankenfarms continue processing profits and cutting
corners everywhere they can.
Do you think those investigators will turn their attention to the beef
industry - or will we have to wait for more outbreaks?
- S.
Factoid:
The US is the only country in the world that raises predominantly grain-fed
cattle. Everywhere else, grass-fed beef remains the norm.
........................................
GettingPrimitive.com - A Natural Inquiry
..... Health, Diet, Society and Survival
........ for the Humans of Poison Planet
........ http://www.gettingprimitive.com
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