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The government is asking Americans not to eat spinach as it continues to investigate the E.coli outbreak related to the leafy green. Spinach - and other vegetable - supplier Natural Selection has been cleared of contamination, but the FDA hasn't lifted the recalls on Natural Selection brands. But some restaurants and grocery stores are still featuring spinach, as the Post reports seeing "spinach soups, spinach pizzas and even bunches of fresh spinach." Now, spinach soups and pizzas might be passable, because the spinach could have been long frozen (how does E.coli do in the freezing temps, though?), but we'd think most customers would avoid spinach.
Yesterday, commenter brooklynbee noted her experience with her spinach:
I had ordered a spinach salad from Fresh Direct and ate half of it the night before the spinach recall, needless to say I threw the rest out - even though it wasn't bagged spinach. FD actually called me and told me not to eat the spinach and to throw it out just to be safe, even though that spinach shouldn't have been affected, and they offered me a full refund on the salad. Now that's customer service. Of course I'm sure they don't want all their spinach-eating customers to die.That's good customer service from Fresh Direct, but it's made easier since they have all the orders in their computer. When Gothamist headed to the grocery store yesterday, we avoided spinach or packaged salads, but did buy some broccoli and lettuce. Has the outbreak affect your green vegetable habits?
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Great customer service...from the pollution nightmare that is Fresh Direct!
Don't you think ordering from fresh direct is actually less polluting than getting groceries from the store?
Sure, FreshDirect uses trucks... but how do you think the food gets to the bricks-and-mortar supermarkets? On a donkey?
It might be polluting, but I know that it's very convenient for some people who simply don't have as convenient access to a wide variety of grocery items.
I hate this! Amazing waste of good food over what? Five cases somewhere in a country of 300 million? 99.9% chance that your spinach is fine. Want more safety? Just don't feed it to children or old people.
When food comes from outside the city in one truck and goes to the supermarket it is far more efficient than the same food going to Fresh Direct's warehouse only to be repackaged in cardboard boxes and sent back out in trucks that make stop after stop - all while never shutting down their engine (gotta keep the refrigeration going!).
All that wasted cardboard is enough reason to shut down Fresh Direct. And Fresh Direct's overpriviliged customers in my building are too lazy to even break down the boxes for recycling. This morning I couldn't even get into the trash room because it was full of uncollapsed boxes (not to mention the trash that my idiot neighbors couldn't quite get into the trash chute).
And I find it hard to believe Jen's friends don't have access to good food markets. Someone in the far nothern reaches of the Bronx would have a much better claim to that fact but I'm guessing Fresh Direct's key demographic lives solidly below 96th St.
three times this weekend i've suddenly remembered the e.coli scare - whilst in the middle of eating spinach. two salads and a knish later, am i worried that might get sick? not so much. i finished all three meals.
Well, waste, if your neighbors don't recycle the FD boxes, they're jerks, I agree there. And it would be nice if FD made some bigger efforts (less packaging, maybe hybrid vehicles like city buses).
But there's no denying that there's a TON of waste in the regular grocery store mechanism, too. Delivering to 50 individual retail locations instead of one warehouse -- lighting and heating/cooling those locations -- taking up expensive real estate with bland/windowless storefronts -- it's far from a perfect model.
And my FreshDirect orders come to me, 50 blocks north of 96th, where the retail grocery options are slim.
Pizza and soup are all cooked, which kills e. coli. Simple as that. If you're worried, don't eat it raw.
One of my coworkers here at Washington Square Village just went home sick after eating a salad of spinachy goodness yesterday... it may be closer than you think. He assumed it couldn't happen to him either.
Someone keep an eye on the freegans...