Answers Found: The e-coli spinach outbreak

The good news is that they have found the source of that horrible spinach based e-coli outbreak. The bad news is the birds-eye view into the organic foods business which uses agribusiness techniques.

"About 1,000 pounds of spinach from the suspect field was considered to be in poor condition when it was delivered to the processing plant in San Juan Bautista . . . The spinach was 'water logged,' probably because a heat wave had made the plants retain more moisture. That made it more susceptible to bruising and led plant operators to mix it with several tons of better-quality spinach from other farms - which experts say could have increased the spread of E. coli contamination."

Read the entire article by clicking here; there is a lot more information, and the source is close to the growing region. The farmer's market will arrive fairly soon, but a trip over there will show that there is absolutely no farm inspection program in-place to ensure this isn't produce from Water Market or other commercial growers. Many cities require such inpection. It's pretty clear that at least one of the vendors pushes the rules: there is a lot of food there that they say is grown in"Southern Illinois" which emerges months before it possibly could downstate.