Spinach off menus as bacteria hits US salad bowl

By Andy Goldberg Sep 19, 2006, 0:29 GMT

Salinas, California - Leafy green spinach - for so long the symbol of healthy diets and the bane of kids across the world - was pulled from store shelves across America Monday as a mysterious bacterial outbreak raged in a region known as 'the salad bowl of the nation'.

The outbreak of the E. Coli contamination has killed at least one person, hospitalized some 55, and caused over 100 to fall sick with extreme symptoms of diarrhea since it was discovered late last week.

After figuring out that all the victims ate spinach, federal health officials warned consumers against eating packaged spinach last week, and on Monday added fresh spinach to the list until the source of the contamination is tracked down.

In reaction, stores around the country grabbed both packaged and loose spinach from their shelves and threw it in dumpsters. Many refunded customers for half-eaten bags, and restaurants updated their menus to remove the offending leaves from their quiches, salads and sandwiches.

The spinach scare was an ignominious fate for the dark green leaves that for so long have been synonymous with healthy eating. Adding to the debacle was the knowledge that the initial scare focused on spinach grown organically - a method so often touted as being healthier than farming with pesticides and other chemicals.

Ironically the only spinach exempt from the directive was the canned variety popularized by the cartoon character Popeye. He would chug entire containers of the stuff to gain his bulging muscles and super-sailor strength, but nutritionists say that the canning process robs the dark greens of much of their goodness.

Investigators from the Federal Drug Administration and the California Department of Health and Safety fanned out across the Salinas Valley Monday to try and identify the source of the bacteria - an essential first step in getting spinach back on the nation's shelves.

'We want to make sure consumers are aware that they don't consume any of the fresh spinach. We don't know whether it came from the bag or another state. We just don't have the focus down that much yet,' Dr. Robert Brackett of the FDA told CNN.

'It could come from the irrigation water, animals in the field, from the workers, from a piece of equipment that's contaminated. We just don't know,' he said.

That was bad news for the Salinas Valley region, which produces some 75 per cent of US spinach crop.

For farmers in the fertile valley which was immortalized in the works of author John Steinbeck, the E. Coli outbreak could quickly spell disaster. The crop has a relatively short window for harvesting and unless the source of the infection can be quickly identified and isolated, it could be entirely lost.

Locals believe that the problem lies not in the fields but in the processing plants or restaurants which prepare and serve the food.

Farmer Dale Huss has over 5 hectares under spinach cultivation and stands to lose 80,000 dollars if he has to plough the produce back in to the ground.

'It's absurd,' he told a reporter Monday as he picked a handful of leaves and munched down on them. 'Nothing wrong with it,' he added. 'Gorgeous, really. It's good.'

But in these times of huge agri-business, there is little financial choice but to destroy the entire crop. Lawyers for some of the victims have already prepared lawsuits against some of the nation's largest growers and distributors. These huge companies buy their produce from all but the most fiercely independent family farmers and package it for sale across the country. If found to be at fault they would face massive legal penalties.

But at least there was one constituency definitely not mourning spinach's demise.

When told of the spinach ban at a local elementary school, a group of 4th graders could hardly contain their joy.

'You mean I can't eat spinach?' said one incredulous 10-year old. 'You mean that spinach is actually bad for you?'