I don’t think that any dangers of bagged chopped lettuce was the salient point of the article as I understood it. Maybe I’ve read or connect with the dots differently.

What I got from it was, and most of us already know this, that the more food is handled and processed, the the greater the risk of any contamination. This sort of a multiplying factor.

A person could have bought a whole head of lettuce or Romaine or bib lettuce. It may be a little contaminated on the outside and they could rinse it off but the more it is cut up like an open wound on one’s body, the more opportunity any bacteria has to enter into the cells of the lettuce proper. Even cutting up lettuce that you have at home ahead of time might spread any possible contamination.

I don’t think we ever buy lettuce that is pre-chopped or cut whether it’s in bags or containers. However, we do sometimes eat out or take out food, which includes lettuce that has been pre-chopped by somebody.

I am not going to worry about the lettuce. I’m going to be more concerned about the cuts to those in charge of our food supply safety. Whether it is fish, meat, dairy, protein, or bakery goods, I think it is good to have some informed, responsible government oversight.

Because of the layoffs and cuts to food safety inspectors and the FDA and whatever, there may be more episodes of public food poisoning.

Link to last week’s food safety article:

➡️ https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6493836/psa-10-most-contaminated-foods-causing-illnesses#n=65

Vgkg — Your garden looks great. How do you DO That?

Remember the Bon Vivant vichyssoise incident? The good old days/ sarc

➡️ https://epthoughtleaders.com/blog/vichyssoise-a-sad-story-with-lessons-learned-for-food-safety-quality-professionals/

" he gov't is no longer testing milk for safety. "

Governmental testing of food items is a joke and always has been little more than small lip service to a big problem. It's never been anywhere near adequate. Not under any administration.

Food producers self test to avoid the cost and trouble of overcoming problems from contaminated products but that only goes so far.

Lots more can be done but like so many other things about governmental controls, what's in place is inadequate and dysfunctional since forever and always will be. There's no desire to do what's needed and no stomach for having such added costs. It won't ever change, neither party is willing to do what's needed.

Here's a link from 2022 from the Environmental Working Group, with data showing how FDA inspections had dropped significantly. It says a 2011 law requires inspections every 3 years. That isn't being done and at best, it's far from sufficient.

Govt inspections plummet

It doesn't have to be the food in your fridge - who eats restaurant/takeout foods? Lots of food vendors use such processed/prepared items...

" Because of the layoffs and cuts to food safety inspectors and the FDA and whatever, "

This may make an intolerable situation worse but the absence of adequate governmental programs and the problems that causes are there and have been since the dawn of time.

I prefer to buy my greens in head form - cheaper, less plastic, more variety. We just had our first salad from our veg garden! I think we got ten leaves each :-) but I expect more bounty ahead.

I do expect more food safety problems in future. No matter how compromised federal testing was, less of it isn't helpful, and states won't have the resources/expertise to pick up the slack. I also think response to contaminated food situations (think Boars Head) will get slower/worse.

American food is $h!t. There is a reason many other countries won't import it. Wayyyy too many additives and questionable production practices.

We grow our own produce and can/freeze for the off-season. We buy our eggs and meat from friends with farms.

And we enjoy eating out when we are in Europe, because their food is just.... BETTER.

I buy bagged shredded cabbage all the time. I almost never use lettuce - I'm not really a fan. I believe that it's shredded and bagged in the store, because it's slightly different in different outlets of the same small chain.

"Vgkg — Your garden looks great. How do you DO That? "

Thanks Petalique, just need a sunny space, good soil, water, time, & luck. There are 5 varieties in that pic. Unfortunately, our fresh lettuce picking season is rather short as the Spring season comes to an end.

What kind of pests do you have to deal with, vgkg? I remember ages ago when we did some novice vegetable growing with our kids, that snails were a scourge we never seemed to be able to completely control.

You can use thin ribbons of copper around your plants to kill snail or slugs - it gives them an electric shock. You can also use beer as bait, and that will kill them also - that's what I've mostly used. Diatomaceous earth is supposed to work, but only on dry soil.

I have only ever been able to grow lettuce in the winter, and so I have to plant it in the fall. Or I can plant it in the shade, but I've rarely had shady areas that weren't already occupied with other plants, such as orchids and bromeliads.

We had aluminum pie tins filled with beer surrounding the plot and tried to remember to refill them as the liquid evaporated. But we never seemed to be able to keep up. We also tried the diatomaceous earth approach too but when you're watering a garden patch with little kids, keeping a perimeter of it dry wasn't feasible.

I admire and respect people with a gardening hobby, few pastimes can offer such a rewarding payoff. I was never bitten by that bug (bad pun) though there were plenty of others flying around. My intent was to have something fun to do with my kids and when they lost interest, I stopped because I really never had any.

Looks like you left out compost, vgkg 😀

This works great on slugs and snails - made from iron phosphate:

And the Soil,Etc. and Organic Gardening forums are still active here, last I checked.

Elmer I'm lucky to have a low slug/snail population here, but in the past I have tried the beer in the tuna can trick and it did work. Also, like Carol I'll use the slug pellet bait if called for. My Ground Beetle population seems to control the slugs well enough. I try to keep the meat eating insect population healthy to keep a check on the plant eaters. The only drawback is that the meat eaters will eat each other too.

As for other pests to deal with?, lots to list as the season goes on! Every vegetable has it's own specific attackers, some plants just 1, others 3-4. Squash for example are loved by cuke beeltes, squash bugs, pickle worms, & Squash vine borers, + plant diseases.

Carol, yep, homemade compost and a dash of Gardentone.

I no longer grow vegetables, as the Farmer's Market is an easier source for a household of mostly 1 and is top quality. I think we have to be the slug capital of the world and I do sometimes bait to save my hostas and a few other choice plants. But I discovered that Sluggo, which is very effective and low toxicity is a favorite of squirrels. I'd go out to sprinkle it around and discover the the squirrels practically following my trail eatiing it. I suspect it also attracts mice and rats. Unfortunately, it's not toxic enough to kill any of them. And it's super expensive squirrel food.

My favorite way to deal with slugs was to put liquid slug bait (more toxic tho) like Deadline into small milk cartons, like half and half cartons, lay them on their sides. The slugs crawl in and eat the bait and die. Animals can't get to it, it doesn't poison the ground, the rain doesn't affect it like it does beer.. But I can no longer find it on the store shelves. Not sure if it just fell out of favor or was pulled for some reason. I can find it on the internet, but at super inflated prices and none at any of my local stores.

"Meat eating bugs", vgkg? Who knew about that? I wonder if we have those here?

My little garden patch (it was maybe 12x12) must have been the feeding destination of choice for the varmints in my neighborhood - word must have spread in their community that I didn't have a clue about what I was doing.

Deadline was around at the time. As I said before, my vegetable gardening was for the benefit of the little kids who were then in our house. You can't expect little kids to be careful watching where they walk. I remember a trial of that stuff wasn't successful, it was very quickly rubbed out and stepped on. I'll guess that Deadline users didn't have little kids in the house.

"Meat eating bugs", vgkg? Who knew about that? I wonder if we have those here?
Yep they're everywhere Elmer. Ground Beetles eat slugs, Ladybugs eat Aphids, Wasps eat Cabbage Loopers, and so on. Think of the insect world as miniature dinosaurs. Both Meat eaters and Plant eaters. Keeping the meat eater population high helps curve the plant eaters' damage to the garden. I particularly like paper wasps, they continuously patrol the garden and snatch up various plant eaters.

I believe in a related thread that Kevin mentioned his asparagus being attacked by asparagus beetles which lay their eggs on the ferns which hatch into larvae, The paper wasps will hunt them down too for a meal and to take them back to their nest to feed to their young. A vegetable garden can be quite a dynamic place where bug eats bug.

I like the wasps that lay its eggs in Tomato/tobacco hornworms which in turn hatch and eat the hornworm from the inside. Of course this is after the hornworm has already done its damage to the tomato plant.

When I was seriously into gardening I kept Khaki Campbell ducks. They are cheap keepers because they are great foragers, excellent egg layers, dont keep a male and you wont have babies, four or five ducks are all you need and bugs and especially slugs and snails will be a memory. They love slugs more than any food on earth. They bill through the vegetation searching but seldom snack. They will nibble the brassicas especially cauliflower but I would put up a little low fence which they respected. The PNW is paradise for slugs and snails. The ducks will also eat the garter snakes who also eat slugs though. I did not believe the story that they ate slugs until I saw one actually eating a slug. You need a secure place to keep them when you arent out and about. Dogs are a problem.

patriciae

Back to the OP topic: Consumer Reports recently warned that products containing cassava have been shown to contain unacceptably high levels of lead.

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/cassava-flour-chips-bread-more-contain-high-levels-of-lead-a7817220954/

FYI, cassava is a popular ingredient in gluten free products.

So much for " eating out when we are in Europe, because their food is just.... BETTER. "

There are lots of news articles about this: " Cassava has gained a firm foothold in Europe and is truly starting to conquer the market and is clearly on the rise. "

cassava european foods - Search

patriot gal, wholesomeness standards and inspection rates are considerably higher than here. And because much of the hybridization/new variety development that have robbed our produce of character and flavorfullness of past times ISN'T done there to the same extent, food in Europe is indeed much better and tasty than what we get there. Fresher, more carefully prepared.

If casava or anything else contains harmful elements that exceed agreed-upon safe levels, the alarms will ring and action will be taken over there much sooner than here.

I see.

Tomatoes are now the latest - salmonella...

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/05/09/packages-vine-ripe-tomatoes-recalled-what-to-know/83542514007/

Thanks, caolb.

Does anyone know how salmonella gets into or onto the tomatoes?

" Does anyone know how salmonella gets into or onto the tomatoes? "

In general, not in this specific case, it often comes from the processing and packaging - from contaminated crates, cloths, conveyors, etc. How did they get contaminated? Could be anything from someone who forgot to put on gloves, to a problem with the water heater that is used for the process that cleans the equipment.

Patriot girl, there's a newspaper article today that discusses some European food practices and also why US beef imports by Europe are limited. Do a search for Why America’s ‘Beautiful Beef’ Is a Trade War Sore Point for Europe .

Q: Is anyone else having difficulty/UNABLE to initiate a New Thread?

No issue as far as I can see.

The thread posting times are out of sync but the site seems to be otherwise normal, on my end.

I just posted a test thread, and it appears on my computer, at least

No one can start a new thread all weekend. It appears to work but the vanishes into thin air. So yes, you are not alone.

I tried posting on Cooking, with X-post to KT. It did not last. Even a stand alone to cooking poofed.

So that explains why a post I started yesterday vanished

And the one I started today, about it disappearing, also is nowhere to be seen...🤔

P.S. Contemplating the thread title, I believe the safety of a lot of things most people take for granted is under attack as well.

Maybe to focus the semantics, I don't think food safety in the US is what's under attack, because our food "safety" is poor compared to other developed countries. I think it may be more accurately phrased:

The food safety rules, practices and policies that provide no better than substandard and unreliable food safety in the US should be under attack. But, don't seem to be.

Much as that OUGHT to be the case, I'm not sure that's what's happening.

" The food safety rules, practices and policies that provide no better than substandard and unreliable food safety in the US should be under attack. But, don't seem to be. "

Well, you may not have liked what few rules, practices, and policies were, they were something rather than nothing. Now there's not even that.

What's changed?

What we have is inadequate and has never been otherwise. What's worse than inadequate?

" What's changed? "

Start with thousands of people laid off (RIF) from the FDA and CDC whose jobs involved information and regulation of food safety. HHS has lost 20,000 people due to "termination and departure".

Then there's the FDA suspending the quality control programs for milk and other dairy products because (surprise!) they no longer have enough people to do it.

The USDA "eliminated the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection..... under an executive order aimed at reducing bureaucracy "

And leaks from the FDA indicate they're planning on eliminating most routine safety inspections. That could be wrong, but given everything else, I'm betting it'll turn out to be true.

"...along with the thread about the new entity that rhymes with ”Rope.”"

Petalique, I don't understand your reason for not mentioning the word "Pope". What up with that, please?

Other than produce being contaminated with pathogens like e coli, salmonella, listeria, etc . Here are more good reasons to grow a garden and avoid produce at the grocery stores...

Here’s the 2024 ‘Dirty Dozen’

This is the complete list of the 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest amounts of pesticides this year.

1. Strawberries
2. Spinach
3. Kale, collard & mustard greens
4. Grapes
5. Peaches
6. Pears
7. Nectarines
8. Apples
9. Bell & hot peppers
10. Cherries
11. Blueberries
12. Green beans

Plus, What vegetables are coated in wax?

Vegetables: avocados, bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, green peppers, hot peppers, parsnips, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes and turnips. A lot of waxed fruits can be added to this list too...

Besides knowing how they've been treated (by you), vine ripened & homegrown produce just taste better.

Toronto V, I won't get sucked in to a Chicken Little panic as you seem to have been.

While I join others with a daily face palm reaction to the obvious ineptitude and stupidity of the thoughtless actions, my concern is the conduct of what's being done and not always the substance of the consequences. Oftentimes, yes, but not always.

There have been many competent and important agencies and functions that have been senselessly attacked so far. Also a lot of incompetent and wasteful ones. It will take time to recover and recalibrate these functions.

We need capable and effective inspections and monitoring of food wholesomeness and haven't had that. The food industry is partially to blame, government is partially to blame. I'm happy to take what's in place on the government side, throw it out the window, and start over again. Hopefully to settle with a more effective outcome.

Fine, then your "the sky is falling" comments don't reflect sincere concerns for you.

There's no reason for you to pay any more attention to US political details than the average American pays to Canadian politics or news events. Which for most is not at all and not ever.

I'll come in second place in a self-righteousness contest with you. You win!

Would you ALL please OPEN a work ticket with HOUZZ.

They seem to know NOTHING about a problem posting New threads.

Obviously something amiss

I was wondering if anyone reported it. 😂

eta - I opened a case regarding the problem.

OK....I just posted a thread...it won't CROSS post to decorating conversations...but..it's staying up on KT. An improvement.

Nicole asked for that

Nope...it didn't stay up for more than ONE minute.

TO open a ticket with HOUZZ:

GO to the bottom of the page...Go to "GET HELP...then CONTACT....describe the problem"