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Gary350
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Salmonella Lettuce

Several times we have seen food recalls on TN News for Salmonella lettuce. Google search shows 6 recalls on Romaine Lettuce in recent years.

Can the home garden have Salmonella lettuce?

What causes Salmonella lettuce?

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applestar
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I thought the most recent lettuce recall involved listeria.

I looked it up and also pulled up a couple of other pages to read, but ran out of time, so I’ll list them below fiy—

List of Selected Multistate Foodborne Outbreak Investigations | Foodborne Outbreaks | Food Safety | CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/outbreak ... -list.html


Recalls and Outbreaks | FoodSafety.gov
https://www.foodsafety.gov/recalls-and-outbreaks


Does Cooking Kill Salmonella? | Allrecipes
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/does ... almonella/

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TomatoNut95
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I've wondered that myself. Maybe it is transmitted in the soil? Contaminated water or fertilize? Who knows. All I know is that buying food in the store gets more and more dangerous everyday. This last bag of frozen fries tasted like chlorine. I didn't get sick but I don't think I'll eat anymore of it.

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Gary350
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About 10 or 15 years ago there was a bunch of lettuce from Mexico that made 100s of people sick & 2 people died. TV News showed Mexican workers in the fields and claimed they have no restrooms so they pee in the lettuce fields. TV was implying that is why lettuce is contaminated. Since then I have never seen TV News claim that again they only say a certain vegetable has been recalled for what ever reason, Salmonella comes to mind but it may have been a different bacteria.

I wonder if my garden lettuce can get contaminated with some type of bacteria????????????

My lettuce is getting old I can't eat it fast enough. Many leaves are brown in the center. It is had to find good green leaves these plants are all the same age planted from seeds at the same time. Maybe I should pull all the plants up.

None of the links say what causes Salmonella and E-coli in lettuce????????

Links do say Salmonella is most common in Romain Lettuce?????
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applestar
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Sorry if the links didn’t contain contamination source info. I didn’t get the chance to read them.

I’ll have to search further, but my general understanding is that a typical source of produce contamination is often the water used to clean the harvested veg. especially when some kind of surface water source is used like irrigation or pond water, local stream or river, or untreated/non-potable water from a piped water system.

Other issues in the field could involve inappropriately applied fertilizer, such as insufficiently composted raw manure on above-ground fruits or leafy greens, or in the soil on root veg. Or not providing for sufficient time lag before harvest.

Bagged cut up vegs can also become tainted in some way during shipping and/or might be treated with antifungal or antibacterial. That’s why it’s best to wash everything even bagged, “pre-washed” salads.

There are of course, also server and packer sanitation issues, cooking and processing issues, etc. in any kind of prepared food.

Home gardeners should also be aware of bird and other wildlife feces that might affect the garden directly, in the water, or washed down from the roof and gutters. But we are much more in control of what the harvest comes in contact with, every step of the way.

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applestar
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WARNING — Following are not from a secure (https) website so I can’t provide clickable links, but if you want to go look, they are interesting.

Romaine- Rib Discoloration | International Produce Training

www.ipt.us.com/produce-inspection-resources/inspectors-blog/defect-identification/romaine-rib-discoloration
Take a look at this picture below, of Romaine, and see if you can identify the three defects circled.

www.ipt.us.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Romaine-1.jpg

Defect #1 is Downy Mildew,
Defect #2 is Marginal Discoloration, and
Defect #3 is Bruising.

Iceberg Lettuce- Rib Discoloration | International Produce Training

www.ipt.us.com/produce-inspection-resources/inspectors-blog/defect-identification/iceberg-lettuce-rib-discoloration
When you hear about rainy or wet weather affecting lettuce fields, from where your lettuce is being grown, pay attention to the defect “Rib Discoloration.” This defect is caused by an infection, the lettuce mosaic virus. The pathogen infects the ribs of lettuce coming from the soil it grows in. Lettuce exposed to heat stress while growing have been known to exhibit symptoms of this defect as well.

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applestar
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@tomatonut — issues with frozen food I think can be several.

* The original food itself and whatever chemical ingredients used as preservatives etc
* Bagged frozen veg that is not air tight can be contaminated if had been in accidentally thawed state at some point, since if air can get out, liquid can get in
* I was once in a grocery store when there was a sudden announcement to avoid a freezer aisle, and I persisted and found out they had to defrost and clean out one of the lean in type chest freezers due to some kind of contamination. I wasn’t able to find out what the problem was.
* I _often_ detect cleaning agent on frozen meat and seafood packaging (I’m chemically sensitive) though not as much on frozen veg.

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TomatoNut95
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Can salmonella be transmitted via farm animals? They always warn kids to wash their hands after handling baby chicks. And don't armadilos carry it? Animals are nasty. Poop, pee, fleas, ticks...its all disgusting. But humans can be just as equally disgusting.

Growing your own veggies has got to be safer than getting it in the store. In your own garden you can monitor it with your own TLC and not worry about other nasty people picking it, and doing no telling what all else it. I don't trust people. A worker could sneeze on the lettuce, use it for toilet paper, drop it in poop, pet an animal then handle it before bringing it in to be packaged.

Or maybe it's all in the soil. You don't know what those commercial growers put in their dirt. Could be all sorts of poop from diseased animals. Or, they water the lettuce with filthy water. Who knows. I do my best to keep my rain buckets cleaned out of algae growth. I don't care if it truly doesn't harm the plants, it's nasty to me and knowing my luck, some creature might mutate in there if I don't clean them out often enough.

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applestar
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I always say, “if I can’t explain it, I don’t know it well enough (understand it fully/completely)”, so I like to verify what I do know and don’t know.

Does it seem like I’m on track? Your concerns about animal sources are addressed in these links.

Salmonella and Food
https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communic ... -food.html


How Food Gets Contaminated - The Food Production Chain | Food Safety | CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/production-chain.html

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Gary350
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:53 pm
Can salmonella be transmitted via farm animals? They always warn kids to wash their hands after handling baby chicks. And don't armadilos carry it? Animals are nasty. Poop, pee, fleas, ticks...its all disgusting. But humans can be just as equally disgusting.

Growing your own veggies has got to be safer than getting it in the store. In your own garden you can monitor it with your own TLC and not worry about other nasty people picking it, and doing no telling what all else it. I don't trust people. A worker could sneeze on the lettuce, use it for toilet paper, drop it in poop, pet an animal then handle it before bringing it in to be packaged.

Or maybe it's all in the soil. You don't know what those commercial growers put in their dirt. Could be all sorts of poop from diseased animals. Or, they water the lettuce with filthy water. Who knows. I do my best to keep my rain buckets cleaned out of algae growth. I don't care if it truly doesn't harm the plants, it's nasty to me and knowing my luck, some creature might mutate in there if I don't clean them out often enough.
I read online salmonella is everywhere, everyone eats salmonella every day. You don't get sick until you eat too much salmonella.

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I remember salmonella and ecoli are usually transmitted via oral fecal route. Produce can be contaminated in various points. Usually crops in direct contact with the soil and eaten raw will be the most likely sources.

Contamination can occur from runoff from uphill animal farms contamination of water sources that flood the fields. It can also be transmitted via manures that have not been fully composted. For example, planting short crops on former pasture lands where manure has not had time to fully decompose. Less than 120 days from animals on the field. It is possible for contamination to occur from animals like snails, slugs, turtles that crawl or eat the plants if they are infected or from wild animals that poop on the plants, like birds. It can also occur from farm workers and equipment if there is contamination of production equipment or from workers not washing up properly before returning from the restroom, or if on a farm with plants and animals, workers are not careful to prevent cross contamination when tending to different jobs.

Chicks usually need to seed their gut with bacteria so they can digest their food properly. They usually get that when they groom themselves. Salmonella is a common gut bacteria in birds. Some farms will spray chicks with serratia instead, to make it their primary gut bacteria. The only problem with that is that while serratia usually does not do any harm to anyone with a healthy immune system. It can be devasting if someone who is immune compromised gets infected with it.

It can be transmitted by eating other things that are not vegetables if it gets contaminated via the oral fecal route.

Cooking thoroughly does kill the bacteria, so meat and vegetables that may have low bacteria counts may not be pathogenic. However, eating meat that is not thoroughly cooked and produce that is not washed or cooked well can make people sick.

You should actually be careful at home as well. It was recommended years ago to make sure your cutting surface is clean and not scratched up. Use different cutting boards or sheets for meat and produce. Plastic is better than wood because it is much harder to sanitize wood cutting boards. Plastic can be sanitized if it is soaked in a bleach solution for a few hours. Always wash your hands, clean food surfaces and knives, and boards between working with different foodstuffs when doing your mise en place. Wear gloves if you have cuts.

For the most part, I don't eat a lot of raw vegetables, especially those that grow close to the ground where the dirt can get on the leaves. Things above the ground and have a skin that I am going to peel like banana, cucumbers, squash, I don't worry too much about. I prefer most of my green vegetables like the Asian greens cooked anyway. I even cook bean sprouts because that has been recalled here before because of e. coli. It was spread by the water used to batch wash the beans. It only takes a little contamination to spread to others if the carrier is water.



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