What to do about the e.coli scare - is it safe to eat out?
I noticed yesterday there was yet another e.coli story involving another restaurant chain. Since the food suspected wasn’t mentioned, it may or may not be that e.coli is the culprit.
But I’m willing to bet that there are a lot of people wondering about the safety of restaurant food in general.
The good news is that, in light of the massive spinach scare earlier in the year, followed by a situation involving maybe green onions, then they said it was lettuce you know that major food chains are going to be scrupulous about their produce, and where they get it from.
The bad news is, that if e.coli is in fact, present, and it’s on something to be served raw, there isn’t much than can be done about it.
Cooking is what gets rid of it. That’s why so much is made of cooking hamburgers to an inner temp of 160 degrees. That’s the temperature you need to kill e.coli
So if you’re concerned about this particular problem, then the best thing to do is, if you eat out, order things that have been cooked, and steer clear of the salads for a while until the uncertainty clears.
The same rule applies, by the way, if you encounter a grocery store where it seems their cleanliness might be questionable. Only buy things there that you’re going to cook, or that are canned or frozen.
Here in Arizona, we’re in the midst of our produce harvest, and I can see that the growers are taking every precaution they can to ensure the lettuce and other things we grow are kept away from any possible source of e.coli.
lettuce, produce, spinach, ecoli, Arizona
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