Source: @theatlantic – The safety of America’s food supply is getting murkier—and if there’s one thing you can do to protect yourself, it’s swearing off bagged, prechopped lettuce, Nicholas Florko writes. Romaine lettuce has a particularly bad reputation for food poisoning: In 2018, tainted romaine killed five people and induced kidney failure in another 27; in 2024, an E. coli outbreak tied to romaine sent 36 people to the hospital across 15 states. But if romaine is risky, pre-washed, ready-to-eat lettuce is even worse: With a single head of lettuce, Florko explains, “you’re making a bet that that exact crop hasn’t been infected. But the process of making prechopped lettuce essentially entails putting whole heads through a wood chipper.” Although millions of bags of lettuce go out with no problem, what’s most disturbing “is the government’s lackadaisical approach to alerting the public of potential threats,” Florko writes. America’s system for tracking and responding to foodborne illnesses has been neglected for decades—and now it’s being further undermined. “The Biden administration cut funding for food inspections, and the Trump White House’s attempts to ruthlessly thin the federal workforce have made the future of food safety” even more unclear, Florko writes. The system faces so many stressors “that regulators may miss cases of foodborne illness, giving Americans a false sense of security.” For instance, it was only last month that Americans became aware of the 2024 romaine-lettuce outbreak after NBC obtained an internal report from the FDA. “The agency reportedly did not publicize the outbreak or release the names of the companies that produced the lettuce because the threat was over by the time the FDA determined the cause,” Florko continues. “The rationale almost seems reasonable—until you realize that Americans can’t determine what foods are, or aren’t, safe without knowing just how often they make people sick.”
one day make you sick,” Florko writes.
