THE latest outbreak of food-borne illness, traced to a virulent bacterium in bagged spinach, is being called a watershed moment for American industrial agriculture, a time of reckoning for industry and government and the public.
Critics say the factory farming system needs an overhaul, with produce farmers and processors being subject to the same sorts of mandatory rules as the meat industry to protect against E. coli O157:H7 and other harmful bacteria. More outbreaks of disease are now traced to produce than to meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk combined.
The dangers can be compounded once produce is taken home. The casual way many consumers treat bagged, cut up fruits and vegetables — not washing them, leaving them unrefrigerated — increases the likelihood that even a low level of harmful bacteria can multiply and cause illness.
Some scientists say the sealed bags add protection; others believe the sealed bags, if mishandled, actually help bacteria to proliferate.
The source of the E. coli O157:H7 blamed in the current outbreak is unknown. It may be irrigation water reclaimed from sewage treatment. It may be unsanitary conditions on the farm. But there is increasing suspicion that the cause may be water runoff from the many cattle farms near the fields in the Salinas Valley of California, where produce tainted with the E. coli has caused eight outbreaks of illness since 1995.
Water contaminated with E. coli from cow manure may have been used for irrigation or may have been deposited on the fields by heavy spring rains and flooding.
Dr. Trevor Suslow, a microbiologist at the University of California at Davis, called this case “the catalyst, the tipping point.’’
“This is a culmination of incidents that have been going on for 10 years and cattle have become the primary focus,’’ Dr. Suslow said. “Data from the last 23 years clearly demonstrate the potential for crop contamination from pathogenic E. coli in the watershed.”
Dr. Suslow asked the question on many critics’ minds: “Should cows be raised in close proximity to produce? Ideally you would like to see them well separated.”
Dr. David Acheson, medical director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition agrees that cows may be a serious problem.
“I’m speculating, but there is a logical link between cattle and manure getting into the water,’’ Dr. Acheson said.
Would the outbreak have been prevented if the farmers and processors of salad greens were subject to the same regulations that meat processors have been under since 1997?
“Farms can do pretty much as they please as long as they don’t make anyone sick,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, a former assistant secretary of agriculture and director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group.
The F.D.A. has jurisdiction, but little regulatory authority, over the produce industry, and has fewer than 2,000 inspectors for more than 120,000 facilities, 250 inspectors fewer than in 2003. Even some high-risk foods are only inspected every two to four years. The Agriculture Department, which oversees the meat industry, has 7,600 inspectors for 6,000 facilities.
On Monday the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a frequent critic of the food industry, and the Food Products Association, an industry group, joined with others in a coalition to lobby for more F.D.A. financing. The agency estimates that, taking inflation into account, the budget for its Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition will have fallen by almost 30 percent from 2003 t0 2007. Its staffing decreased by 14 percent.
The increased number of outbreaks of produce contamination has put even more pressure on the agency.
“This is kind of a new situation and we don’t have a routine inspection cycle,’’ said Mark Roh, the acting regional director of food and drug for the F.D.A.’s Pacific Region. “Farms traditionally have not been inspected even when they were bagging lettuce,” he said.
Dr. Acheson and Mr. Roh both say the agency is considering mandatory rules.
“If rules were mandatory rather than voluntary it might tend to enhance the industry’s effort at compliance,” said Mr. Roh. He said regulations could be modeled on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system used in meat, poultry, fish and egg processing plants in which preventive controls minimize hazards in food.
Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, agreed.
“We need mandatory standards, enforced across the system,” Ms. DeWaal said.
Compounding unsafe growing practices are unsafe processing and transportation practices. From field to home, produce may be left unrefrigerated several times: immediately after it is cut; as it sits on receiving docks at warehouses and supermarkets and when it is in display cases.
Often supermarkets do not maintain proper temperature in refrigerated cases for meat, poultry and produce. Cases should be kept at 41 degrees or below to prevent most bacteria from growing, but they often reach 50 degrees. At room temperature bacteria double every couple of hours.
Shoppers can make the problem worse. Many people assume that because some fruits and vegetables are displayed without refrigeration, all produce is safe at room temperature.
“Consumers need to treat cut or bagged produce the way they treat their meat and poultry for safety,” Ms. DeWaal said. “Pick it up last; get it home and in the refrigerator.”
Cut produce should not be left on the kitchen countertop, on the desk in the office or in the car while doing other errands. The opportunity for contamination increases when produce is cut up, allowing pathogens to spread from and to the cut surfaces.
Consumer Reports offers additional advice: Wash all produce thoroughly in a stream of water. Forget about produce washes: they do not claim to kill harmful bacteria. Discard any areas showing even the slightest evidence of spoilage. Use separate cutting boards and utensils for meat and produce; thoroughly clean after cutting and dry with paper towels.
For uncut produce Dr. Michael P. Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety, recommends extra precautions now that E. coli has become such a problem. Discard the outer leaves from a head of lettuce. Then wash your hands with hot, soapy water, remove the rest of the leaves and wash them. Wash even fruits and vegetables with skins that are not eaten, to prevent bacteria on the skin from entering the flesh when the food is cut.
Cross-contamination is not just a matter of keeping raw hamburger away from salad greens, but of keeping unwashed salad greens and utensils that have touched them away from any food that will not be cooked.
Bagged cut produce is washed in a chlorinated solution, but the term “triple washed,” printed on the labels, does not mean the salad greens are completely safe.
“The primary role of water chlorination is to insure the quality of the water for cooling and washing and for killing organisms on the surface of the product,” said Dr. Suslow. “It doesn’t work 100 percent in any case. That’s why all food safety programs are built around prevention.”
Chlorination doesn’t work at all when the bacteria are taken up into the leaves, which may happen if the soil has widespread E. coli O157:H7 from contaminated water or from improperly treated manure used as fertilizer. Studies have shown that bacteria can get into the plant’s leaves through the cut ends and through the plant’s equivalent of pores. Then the only way to kill the bacteria is to heat it to 160 degrees for 15 seconds.
On the other hand, six million packages of cut greens are sold every day in North America and about 170 illnesses have been reported, suggesting that the chances of getting sick are still small.