The outbreak linked to romaine lettuce killed one person and sickened at least 88 more, including a 9-year-old boy who nearly died of kidney failure.
An E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce ripped across 15 states in November, sickening dozens of people, including a 9-year-old boy in Indiana who nearly died of kidney failure and a 57-year-old Missouri woman who fell ill after attending a funeral lunch. One person died.
But chances are you haven’t heard about it.
The Food and Drug Administration indicated in February that it had closed the investigation without publicly detailing what had happened — or which companies were responsible for growing and processing the contaminated lettuce.
Disgusting. I’d rather pay extra for imports at this point if possible. I just don’t trust American products.
That makes no difference, this could’ve happened with an imported product for all you know
You mean from a country with strong and monitored food safety processes?
I suppose it could be tampered with such that no one would ever notice even with the proper handling. Maybe by evil alien robots. No one would know!
E. coli outbreaks also occur in Europe, unfortunately
Do they also cover it up?
No, but they’re not investigating outbreaks of imported food in the US either. The point is an outbreak in the US could have come from anywhere because we know nothing about it
Or just don’t eat lettuce at all. It’s mostly water anyway.
Sounds real healthy
You’ll be fine if you replace greens with spirulina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement)
Thanks professor. I knew I was wise to come onto the Internet for nutritional or medical advice.
Wow, mocking isn’t cool on Lemmy; we are trying to get away from Reddit, not become the next one, right? I have insulted no one here and am certainly no professor in the room. These guys are, though: Heavy metal contamination in vegetables and associated health risks
This article is from March 2025, so it’s not outdated by any means. Lettuce is a hyperaccumulator of heavy metals and food from the surface is increasingly becoming toxic to eat if it isn’t naturally self-protective (like avocados, mushrooms, onions).
Thanks for this. I never thought vegetables could have heavy metals like that. This is actually wild to learn, and it makes me think twice about buying it in the future.
bro get the fuck over yourself.
What exactly does that mean, though; just ignore research? I do believe that it’s worth sounding the alarm about changing our eating habits, even if it sucks.
Now I’m seeing that we may have to abandon rice altogether (which sucks because I live off the stuff): Global warming will make rice toxic due to more arsenic accumulation
It would be nice to be able to ignore new, scary research, but being prepared lets us more gradually make uncomfortable switches. Even this just dropped, so hopefully we’ll be able to figure something out here: Toothpaste widely contaminated with lead and other metals, US research finds (April 17: just yesterday)
Ugh, stop being so fucking helpful.
All this “sharing of informative research which could benefit the health and lives of everyone here” is pissing me off.
Who do you think you are? Some kind of caring person who isn’t stooping down to our level?
Let me die of arsenic poisoning you prick.