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A Little Advice on Getting Back to Greens

FARAI CHIDEYA, host:

Spinach tainted by E. coli has a lot of folks turning away from their favorite leafy greens. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says the tainted spinach has made more than 183 people sick. Health officials are confident that they're closing in on the source of the outbreak.

In the meantime, commentator John McCann has some tips for those who can't wait to get back to their spinach salads.

Mr. JOHN MCCANN (Columnist, The Herald-Sun): Well, blow me down. Popeye the Sailor Man never mentioned anything about E. coli. Then again, the beloved cartoon character generally ate canned spinach. It's the fresh stuff the government's telling us to avoid.

Frozen spinach is okay, because bacteria can't grow on it. Contaminated spinach cooked thoroughly is a possibility, but there is the possibility of cross-contamination during preparation. The bad spinach that killed a Wisconsin woman has been confirmed in at least a couple dozen states. North Carolina, where I live - whew - isn't one of them.

Now, before you diehard carnivores start taking cheap shots at vegetarians, let me remind you that mad cow disease didn't stop you from ingesting steaks, that the 1993 E. coli outbreak at the Jack in the Box hamburger joints didn't keep you from sliding ground beef between buns. And I'd ask you about the last time you ate something off the floor. Now I'm not talking about applying the five second rule to the french fry you dropped at your favorite dining establishment, but when was the last time you ate something off the floor of your own house?

I mean you didn't even bat an eye or look left or right, you just shoved that chicken wing between your teeth and brought back nothing but glistening bone. And you - what's that? Your house is clean? Oh, really. Well, what's that on the bottom of your shoe? That's where E. coli comes from, you know. Fecal matter.

And you mean to tell me, back to the bad spinach, you mean to tell me that some fieldworker left his row to go in the woods to do number two and did a sorry job washing his hands? Well, the local public health director here in Durham told me I couldn't just flat out make that assumption, because the fecal deposits, animal or human, likely came from the irrigation source for the spinach.

Okay, fine. But the reason I'm all anal about - well, bad choice of words - the whole reason I'm stressing over home hygiene is because the folks where I live are pretty lousy about scooping up after their dogs. Even if I dodge the big piles of poop, the soles of my shoes are bound to pick up some residue that I'll track on my carpet, where my newborn will be crawling before long. And by then her motor skills will be coordinated enough to where she can - yuck -stick her fingers in her mouth.

Not that I can catch E. coli from kissing on my baby girl. It's just straight nasty. And let me come at you one more time. Exactly how much fecal matter is on your rug, huh?

My point here is there is a way to exercise caution without going crazy. Most of you probably forgot the 19 other E. coli outbreaks involving spinach and lettuce before this one. You probably didn't give any though to licking sauce off your fingers after opening the restaurant door touched by a dude who didn't bother to wash his hands after leaving the toilet.

Yeah, bon appetite to the lady I talked to the other day. She was forgoing fresh veggies and opting to have a little broccoli from a Chinese restaurant. No doubt the fiery wok will kill every bacterium known to mankind.

CHIDEYA: John McCann is a columnist for The Herald-Sun, in Durham, North Carolina. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

John McCann