by Marion Nestle

Currently browsing posts about: Fruits-and-vegetables

Mar 20 2019

Another Romaine lettuce outbreak takes its toll

I occasionally write about disease outbreaks caused by food and am especially interested in those caused by romaine lettuce, because it’s so hard to trace back where it came from and how it got contaminated.

This post is about two outbreaks of toxic E. coli O157:H7 from Romaine lettuce.

Outbreak #1: This one pretty much ended in November 2018.  My post on it is here.  The CDC’s page on it  is here.

It was especially serious:

  • 210 reported illnesses from 36 states
  • 96 hospitalizations
  • 27 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS)
  • 5 deaths

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler posted a slide show analyzing this outbreak on his website: “Thanks to FOIA, the CDC and FDA, the 2018 E. coli Romaine Outbreak becoming more Transparent.”  At least that.

Outbreak #2.  In February, the FDA published its “Investigation Summary: Factors Potentially Contributing to the Contamination of Romaine Lettuce Implicated in the Fall 2018 Multi-State Outbreak of E. coli O157:H7.”

The FDA’s web page on this outbreak is here, and the CDC’s is here.

Bill Marler, whose firm represents victims of these outbreaks, posted annotated comments on the announcement.  He titled his post: “The FDA to Leafy Green Growers – “Please voluntarily stop poisoning your customers.”

Despite finding that E. coli outbreaks spanning years likely came from the same are or farm and was most likely caused by the same factors enumerated above, the FDA only sets forth “recommendations” that growers of leafy greens assess their growing operations for compliance with applicable requirements of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule and GAPs, including (see my snide comments in bold).

I will just give one example of his comments:

FDA continues to recommend (suggest, plead, beg, whine) that leafy green growers, buyer/shippers, and retailers be able to trace product back to the specific source in real time and make information about the source, such as harvest date and standardized growing regions, readily available for consumers on either packaging, point of sale signs, or by other means.

Voluntary, alas, isn’t good enough.  The FDA needs authority to require, demand, insist on.  Now.

If you want to see what this is about, take a look at the documents:

  • FDA’s final guidance for leafy green growers is here.
  • FDA guidance documents for leafy green growers are posted here. There are lots of them.
  • FDA guidance documents for retailers selling leafy greens are posted here.

 

 

Feb 25 2019

Industry-funded study of the week: avocados

I love avocados and think they—like all fruits and vegetables—are just fine to eat.

But avocado trade associations want us to eat more avocados.

A reporter sent me correspondence from an executive from a public relations firm that must represent some such trade association.  Over a period of about a month, the PR person sent the reporter four emails.  Here is message #4:

Subject: New avocado research just in time for American Heart Month

Sorry for the nudge – I just wanted to check in one more time to see if you’re working on any heart health related stories in which avocados could be a fit. If so, I thought your readers may find this research helpful. Either way, please let me know and I will stop bugging you ?

The previous three messages extolled the heart-healthy benefits of eating avocados and offered to connect the reporter to a dietitian (identified by name) “for a phone or email interview to discuss this further and answer any questions.”

None of the messages stated who the PR firm or dietitian were working for.

But take a look at the research article.

The study’s conclusion: “Incorporating fresh Hass avocados in meals can help people achieve dietary recommendations to eat more fruits and vegetables and simple substitution strategies with avocados for carbohydrates can add to the nutrient diversity of the diet and potentially have important cardio-metabolic benefits worthy of investigating further.”

No surprise: “This research was supported by the Hass Avocado Board, Irvine, CA, USA.”  One of the authors “is a member of Avocado Nutrition Science Advisory.”

The reporter’s response to all this, and I quote: “AAAAHGGHGHGH.”

Mine too.

Dec 3 2018

Industry-funded study of the week: Cherries and exercise recovery in women

Since publication of my latest book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We EatI’ve been collecting particularly delicious examples.

Here’s one I discovered through a tweet:

I looked up the press release.

Montmorency tart cherries may have the potential to improve exercise recovery in active females, suggests a new study published in the European Journal of Sport Science.

Researchers in the U.K. found that Montmorency tart cherry concentrate, when consumed twice a day for eight days, reduced self-reported muscle soreness and impacted certain aspects of muscle function after exercise, compared to a placebo.

Guess who funded this?Another example of a study with a sponsor predictable from its title, alas.

May 11 2018

Food for thought: top 20 fruits and vegetables

The Packer worries that millennials are not buying as much produce, even bananas, as older folks.

Maybe they will…?

Mar 19 2018

Another note on the Japanese food scene

While I was in Japan last week, a colleague from Washington State asked if his local apples were on sale in Japanese supermarkets.  I looked.  They were not.

If Washington State apples, organic or not, are exported to Japan, they are invisible in supermarkets.

They certainly are invisible to me.  Japanese food labels are in Japanese, as is information about country of origin.

But I asked.  The apples I saw were grown in Japan.

The only imported fruit I could find were bananas—not labeled as to origin but Japan does not grow them—and blueberries from Mexico.

Imported fruit, it seems, is not available for local consumption because it would compete with fruit produced by local farmers.

Less expensive fruit is imported but used for food service; it is not easily available for home purchase.

This helps explain why the Japanese do not eat much fruit.  It is expensive even in local stores.  The prices I saw looked like those in Manhattan.

And this brings me to the uniquely Japanese use of fruit as a luxury gift item.  These melons (not my photo) cost more than $100 each (the exchange rate is about ¥100 to a dollar).  But  saw melons like these in specialty stores costing much more—$150 and up.

As for strawberries, these gift packs cost $20 each but more elegant packages go much higher.

These are part of a complicated culture of obligatory gifts.  To Westerners like me, the prices are shocking.

The fruit is locally grown, at least.

Jan 18 2018

Durians: a market for durian-flavored products?

I was fascinated to read in FoodNavigator-Asia that the Chinese like durians so much that they have created a demand for durian-flavored food products.  Alibaba, the Amazon of China. offers plenty of durian products, but FoodNavigator mentions cookies, cakes, pie fillings, coffee, and much else.

Durians, shown below, are—to put it mildly—controversial.

People either love them or hate the way they smell and taste.

Singapore has banned them on subways.

Their, how shall I put this, unique odor comes from a variety of sulfur compounds.

For people who love them, they are worth eating for their nutritional benefits (like those of any other fruit).

Durian pizza, anyone?

Aug 31 2017

Q and A: fruit vs juice

Lots of questions come in about all kinds of things.  This one from a reader with the subject line “Fruit juice is so confusing.”

Fruit juice (especially without lots of pulp) gets a bad wrap from the nutritionist community.  The only nutrition based argument I can find has to do with juice containing loads of sugar and water, some vitamins, and little else.  However eating fruit seems to get praise ONLY because it contains fiber.  So would drinking juice and taking a fiber supplement be the nutritional equivalent to eating fruit?

Fruit has sugars but also vitamins, minerals, and fiber.  Nutritionists don’t worry about the sugars in fruit (or shouldn’t) because most people don’t eat much of it at any one time.  We hope that people will eat more fruit, not less.

Juice is another matter.  In small amounts (juice glasses were 6 ounces when I was growing up), juice contains the vitamins and minerals from fruit, but not much of the fiber.  Whole fruit is a better choice.  It’s also a better choice because juice is made from lots of fruit.  If you eat one apple—no problem.  If you drink apple juice, you could easily be consuming the sugars from six apples.

As for supplements, fiber and otherwise: they can never substitute for the full range of nutrients in foods.  You are always better off eating food.

It’s summer.  Enjoy the fruit.

 

Jul 26 2017

Uh oh: Papayas with Salmonella

First cantaloupe, now papayas.

The CDC has opened up a homepage on Salmonella infections associated with eating Yellow Maradol Papayas.

Here’s the count so far:

  • 47 Cases
  • 12 States
  • 12 Hospitalizations
  • 1 Deaths

Food Safety News has the story.  And provides the label you had best avoid.

As usual, by the time the CDC finds out about outbreaks, cases have slowed down (it takes time to find them).

This one is affecting people in states all over the country.

Papayas grow on trees.  Salmonella are animal bacteria.  Monkeys?  Arboreal sloths?

A more likely explanation is that the fruit came in contact with human waste or dirty hands sometime during collection, transport, or processing.

What to do?

Bacteria are on the rind.  They get on the fruit itself when you cut through it.  You can try scrubbing the outside before you peel the papaya.  The CDC recommends discarding it and cleaning your kitchen carefully.

Better preventive controls?  They are on the books (the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act).

Enforcement?  Not unless Congress appropriates the funds.

Why won’t it?  FDA appropriations go through agricultural appropriations, not health.  Do ag committees care about food safety?

I wish.

Addition:  Food Safety News reports that the distributor of the papayas has started recalling them, but not publicly.