The USDA has issued a warning over eating "freshly bagged spinach" due to an E. coli outbreak. This is a warning over eating fresh spinach that has "just gone bad" as quoted on the news this morning. This is kind of confusing, because if it's contaminated to begin with, it's CONTAMINATED TO BEGIN WITH! I think I'll just refrain from eating spinach period until the story seems to be straight on the news. That usually takes a little while as the day goes by. Memories of Jack-in-the-Box and 1993, UGH!

The spinach originated from California. I've avoided this packaging anyway. All produce should be carefully washed.

Thanks for the heads-up! <img src="/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

Oh Boy! Cheap spinach! This is just like the time there weren't any lines at Jack in the Box!

Does anyone know if the spinach came from Mexico?

You can check the latest updates by the FDA at www.fda.gov, including recommendations about what brands to specifically avoid. I'm sure that this information will change as the FDA gathers more data.

Somewhat ironically in light of your question, the FDA is saying that contaminated spinach may have been exported to Mexico from the US, not the other way around. Plenty of food gets contaminated right here in the US, although most incidents don't result in highly publicized recalls like this one.

According to several news reports the spinach was contaminated by "fecal" tainted water used for watering the plants. My question is if they knew the water was "tainted" why in the world did they still harvest the food and ship it to market???

Actually, that's still just one theory about how spinach can get contaminated with E. Coli, although the news keeps repeating it as if it were already established as fact. No one knows how or where the contamination started yet. That's why the FDA is telling Americans to avoid all fresh spinach because they really don't know. Obviously, all the spinach produced in the country from all these different farms can't possibly be contaminated, but the gov't can't narrow it down any further at the moment. The warning changes as new information is uncovered. The warnings started vague last week, got more specific, then just got more vague again today.

Some of the packaging was labeled as "Organic". Perhaps the natural fertilzer was contaminated.

would it be safe to eat if spinach is wash twice in light bleach?