How can intestinal bacteria like E. coli infect a vegetable like spinach?
On September 14, 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about the safety of raw, bagged spinach. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) informed the FDA that it had linked the spinach to several illnesses. More than 100 people had gotten sick, and one had died. Most people associate foodborne illnesses with meat, chicken, seafood and eggs — not with salad, spinach and other vegetables. In fact, E. coli O157:H7, the strain of bacteria that likely infected the spinach, is most commonly found in ground beef. In 1993, for example, 700 people became infected with E. coli after eating undercooked fast-food hamburgers. E. coli infects meat more often than vegetables because it lives in the intestines of mammals, including cows. It’s relatively easy for E. coli to infect beef during processing, especially if the contents of a cow’s intestines come into contact with meat, cutting utensils or surfaces. So how do mammals’ intestinal bacteria get into spinach?
