Off the Urban Grid

The Organic Way: An E. Coli Prevention?

The two week ban on eating spinach that occurred in 2006 might have made you wonder how can we be sure an E. coli outbreak won’t happen again?  Health officials linked the tainted spinach to nine bags packaged at Natural Selection Foods in San Juan Bautista, but the cause of contamination is still unknown.  Would this outbreak have been prevented if organic processes were used to produce spinach?

Organic foods are becoming a more available option for consumers; even Walmart has begun to stock organic foods and clothing.  But are there any benefits to eating organically?

According to EPA guidelines, organic produce is grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers, and organic meat and dairy products come from animals that have not been given antibiotics or growth hormones.  Eating organically is a purer, more natural lifestyle that doesn’t involve consumption of chemicals, which is its biggest advantage health wise if you believe that you are what you eat.  Additionally, organic foods are what they are, because there isn’t any added sugar, salt or fat that usually goes into overly processed foods.  Although there is not an agreement among scientists on whether organic is better, some say that the natural foods contain more nutrients than nonorganic ones.  At this point it’s a decision the consumer has to make.

As for E. coli, it’s as natural as organic food, so even if all spinach farms adopted the organic way of processing, the bacteria could still find its way onto the spinach.  Unclean water, poor worker hygiene and the presence of domestic as well as wild animals on the field are all potential sources of E. coli.  So being organic or inorganic is not the issue when it comes to E. coli.

Tags: organic, organic spinach