Recall of Organic Berry Blend

[zoramargolis]

Many of the people who got sick reported purchasing this at Costco. Also Harris Teeter.

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Another episode of "organic" not being synonymous with "safe and good for you."

[Barbara]

Many of the people who got sick reported purchasing this at Costco. Also Harris Teeter.

click

Another episode of "organic" not being synonymous with "safe and good for you."

This reminds me of what happened to spinach a couple of years ago. The problem originated in California and our local farmers had to make signs that their spinach wasn't part of the problem. Finding the culprit in these incidences must be a colossal PITA.

Of course, the real problem may very well be the lack of "facilities" for the folk picking our food. May very well be a case of "penny-wise, pound-foolish"--organic or not.

[Pat]

This reminds me of what happened to spinach a couple of years ago. The problem originated in California and our local farmers had to make signs that their spinach wasn't part of the problem. Finding the culprit in these incidences must be a colossal PITA.

Of course, the real problem may very well be the lack of "facilities" for the folk picking our food. May very well be a case of "penny-wise, pound-foolish"--organic or not.

An article I read a couple of days ago about this quoted the owner of the company that produced it and he tied it to pomegranate seeds from Turkey that were used in the blend.

[bookluvingbabe]

Many of the people who got sick reported purchasing this at Costco. Also Harris Teeter.

click

Another episode of "organic" not being synonymous with "safe and good for you."

Do consumers really believe organic is safe and good for you?

I always view organic as hopefully fewer weird chemicals that might kill me in odd and unusual ways in my 80s.

[monavano]

Do consumers really believe organic is safe and good for you?

I always view organic as hopefully fewer weird chemicals that might kill me in odd and unusual ways in my 80s.

I believe the answer is overwhelmingly "yes". Organic and Natural labelings sell and trying to qualify exactly what these terms mean (and what they do not mean) is a bit like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.

eta: I should have also put "cage free and free range" in there. Most people don't know what it really means but assume that those eggs come from happy chickens, farting rainbows in a field.

[Pat]

I believe the answer is overwhelmingly "yes". Organic and Natural labelings sell and trying to qualify exactly what these terms mean (and what they do not mean) is a bit like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.

eta: I should have also put "cage free and free range" in there. Most people don't know what it really means but assume that those eggs come from happy chickens, farting rainbows in a field.

And, especially in this case, when you have ingredients coming from multiple countries, the likelihood of something going wrong is even greater. I think they were able to tie this to the Turkish pomegranate seeds at least in part because hepatitis A is much more common in that part of the world than in the US.

[lekkerwijn]

I would argue this is less about organic versus conventional and should be yet another wake-up call to consumers that produce safety is as big, if not a bigger concern than meat/fish/poultry/eggs. The deaths from listeria linked to cantaloupe in the US or E.Coli on sprouts (the most unsafe food you can buy btw; some stores actually put warning labels on them) are proof that produce, especially produce consumed raw, is a frequent vector of microbial contamination. Washing produce isn't enough, it is very easy to cross contaminate surfaces. Just think about how you transport and store produce. Think about those reusable grocery bags. And as more people heed warnings about obesity and healthy diets and begin, albeit slowly, to eat more produce and serve more produce in school we'll likely only see more outbreaks. Since we've gotten better at detection and have more stringent reporting requirements, in the age of twenty four hour news cycles and social media even small, localized recalls with no associated outbreaks become national news. The big elephant in the room is that while we have made produce safer through HAACP, GAPs, and GMPs, we could make it safer still via processing including irradiation.