October 2006

Fresh spinach started trickling back onto local grocery stores shelves this weekend and will slowly continue its produce section homecoming throughout the week, according to the Monterey County Herald.

The news from the Monterey County Health Department this weekend saying local spinach was safe to sell again has been good news for producers such as

The state is allowing a Fresno County dairy to resume producing raw milk products after a three-week investigation into four cases of E. coli poisoning in Southern California.

"The recall and quarantine were lifted because Organic Pastures dairy met the requirements of the state to resume manufacturing operations," Steve Lyle, spokesman for the California Department

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that allows California public health officers to notify the public of the names of retailers that receive USDA-recalled meat and poultry, so that consumers can better protect themselves from food-borne illnesses, reports Common Dream Newswire.

This responds to a 2002 agreement in which California’s Department of Health

A New York Times editorial comments on the recent spinach-related E. coli outbreak:

“Just when many of us thought that eating lots of fresh green leafy vegetables was the key to good health, along comes an outbreak of bacterial contamination in bagged spinach that has frightened consumers and led to a recall of all affected

Thomas Bartlett of the Washington Post recently ordered some raw, unpasteurized milk from a Tennessee dairy that offers raw milk as pet food.

Bartlett lives in Maryland, where raw milk is not offered in stores. Selling it is actually illegal there.

Not only is it illegal, but it is also a violation of federal law

Despite the recent E. coli spinach outbreak, food may be safer now than at any other time in the last decade, with illness occurring at record-low rates, reports the Associated Press.

Consumers get part of the credit, for handling food more safely at home, but experts say the biggest improvement came from better industry controls