https:/.../lettuce_v2.mp4?rlkey=jmxcahzwb4hs80yuqn75gwegn&st=148m3j6r&dl=0

Now is not the time to be

eating bagged lettuce.

Whether we like it or not,

vegetables, while nutritious,

have a nasty reputation

for carrying foodborne illness.

It makes sense.

We eat them raw,

we don't cook them, and often

they bring things from farms

that we just don't

want on our table.

It might sound

kind of paranoid,

but the unfortunate fact

is that lettuce,

especially precut,

often gets us sick.

Lettuce,

whether we like it

or not,

is often

the cause of multistate

foodborne-illness outbreaks.

We seem to have a big one

pretty much every fall.

The issue is

it's really an odds game.

With bagged lettuce,

what essentially is happening

is all the crops

that are being farmed

are being thrown

into, basically,

an industrial wood chipper,

and they're being

put into bags.

You don't know

how many different crops

are going into each bag.

And if there's even

one little bit

of contaminated lettuce

in that machine, you likely

could be bringing home

that illness with you.

Now, I would never suggest

to just give up

lettuce entirely.

But there is an

easy option here,

and it is just buying

your own lettuce

and chopping it yourself.

That will dramatically reduce

your risk of

foodborne illness.

And you will still get

to enjoy a Caesar salad.