Poll: Bean sprouts out, hand washing in post German E coli outbreak

Jul 29, 2011, 13:13 GMT

Berlin - Germans are avoiding bean sprouts and more likely to wash their hands in the wake of an E coli outbreak this spring that left 50 people dead, according to poll results released Friday.

The outbreak, which left people sick with the especially vicious enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC), had large parts of Europe in a panic for weeks as experts tried to pinpoint the source, initially recommending people avoid salads before singling out Egyptian fenugreek seeds.

The Yougov poll, commissioned by the German Press Agency dpa, showed that about half the people who said they might have put bean sprouts on a salad or sandwich before the scare are now avoiding sprouts of all kinds.

'It was a small segment of the market without EHEC, now it's a practically non-existing segment,' said Hans-Christoph Behr of the Agricultural Market Information Society.

The survey also showed that about 40 per cent of Germans are paying much more attention to kitchen hygiene since the scare and are much more likely to wash hands and food before meals.

Germany's Robert Koch Institute on Tuesday officially declared the epidemic to be over.