Spinach deprivation :(

One or the other thing keeps happening for the media to report, highlight and to have as a major alert news. The latest in US is the lovey-dovey relationship between spinach and Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) bacteria. Its not as lovey-dovey as it sounds as it is proving hazardous (there have been more than 100 people affected so far and even a death). So whats the current trend? Don't eat spinach!





Spinach or Palak as we Indians know it, is a commonly used sabji in our households. I cannot claim that life doesn't go on without spinach :-p, but yeah we do use it atleast once a week in some form or the other - palak tovve or parata or palak gobhi and so on.

Last week when I went to the supermarket for the weekly grocery shopping, I saw a bunch of spinach and immediately put it in the shopping cart. The reason being that it had already been more than a week since I had made anything with it. The very next day, Sri told me that there was an E.Coli outbreak and it was pin pointed to the fresh spinach out in the market. Well, we always wash and cook spinach before we eat it and it seems though the washing doesn't offer any protection, the cooking does kill the bacteria, but who wants to take a risk? So I had to throw the whole bunch into the dust bin :(.

Previously, there have been quite a few outbreaks of E.Coli in US, but that was mainly due to raw beef. Most of the strains of this particular bacteria are perfectly harmless but a few are responsible for some severe infections. More details here. The one thats circulating right now can cause infection with symptoms diarrhea and vomiting, and the bacteria can lead to more severe complications, particularly in the very young or elderly, including anemia and kidney failure (yeah stole the sentence straight from CNN :-D).

And somehow spinach is the carrier this time. Some people are blaming the manure and others are even speculating foul play (!) :-p. But the spinach farmers are in deep trouble as it has been taken off the shelves of every supermarket and people are being advised not to consume any spinach at all. But I'm sure the government will come up with some sort of compensation for the whole thing.

Well, the choice is easy right? Spinach or no infection? Obviously no infection. But whenever I see spinach in news, on web pages etc, I can't help remembering that its has been weeks now since I've made and eaten anything with palak in it (after all thats the human weakness, we crave for anything we can't have :-p) and it maybe weeks more until spinach will be in the clear again...

Oh Popeye, whatever will you do? ;-).