Saturday, September 16, 2006

Earthbound Farms--Irony and E. Coli

The outfit which recalled all its spinach is Earthbound Farms, a 20-something company which has quite a reputation as an "organic foods" producer.

Here's a little blurb about their 26,000 acre operation:

This means that each year 8,400,000 pounds of synthetic fertilizer and 267,000 pounds of toxic and persistent pesticides are not introduced into our environment, your neighborhood, or our food.

From the AP report:

Earthbound Farm, the country's largest grower of organic produce, is facing unwelcome scrutiny after federal officials linked a nationwide E. coli outbreak to its bagged spinach

The company, also known by its legal name Natural Selection Foods LLC, recalled and stopped shipping all its spinach products after E. coli outbreaks killed one person and sickened more than 100 others in 19 states.

Well, whatever it is, at least it's not a "persistent pesticide."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, way to "[bring] the benefits of organics to as many people as possible."

Anonymous said...

There is no irony with e.coli found in organic products. Oragnics are fertilized with manuer instead of synyhetic fertilizers so the risk of contracting things like e.coli is much more likely. Unregulated organic produce is far more dangerous than u might think.Things grown in fecal matter are not safer for consumption when bacteria such as e.coli157 are so deadly.

Anonymous said...

organic standards state that manure as a fertilizer must be spread many months prior to planting. This means that things like e. coli will have already been broken down. Also the tainted spinach has only been confirmed in conventional packages. They have yet to connect it to organic spinach. Either way it shows the inadequacies and potential risks of the industrial food supply.