THROW IT AWAY! PANIC!!!!!

Do you remember playing the whisper game when you were in grade school? If not, here's a quick review: the teacher would have the kids sit in a circle and she would whisper a secret in the ear of the student to her right or left. Then she would have that student whisper the secret into the next student's ear and so on until the secret came back "full circle". Usually it involved giggling and laughing and sometimes a kid would whisper to another so loud that we could hear what they said. Finally, the secret would be to the last student in the circle and he or she would whisper to the teacher what they heard from the person next to them. Enter, the hysterical result of the original secret was NOTHING like the end secret.

That is exactly what I see in the food industry regarding the November 2019 romaine lettuce recall. It's a communication breakdown. Except, instead of laughing, most people are walking away scratching their heads wondering if their romaine lettuce is tainted with E. Coli 0157:H7 (which they do not even know what those last digits mean)..... Some opt for the "Better safe than sorry" method and just quit buying it or throw their lettuce out quietly. Others massively panic and share it on their social media pages to make sure their loved ones remain free of E Coli. I admit, I did this on all Safe Food En Route's outlets and my own personal Facebook page as well last year as the harvest location was not well-known or well-labeled and therefore, we were being cautious. And as you know, some are those that were affected by the outbreak and are now battling for their life. Check the latest information on this CDC website.

If you have read to this point, I hope you stay with me. Mostly, I believe my clients and colleagues are reading this blog, so I think I can take some liberty to speak more candidly to the food industry. If you are not in the food industry, this blog still might educate you a little on labeling, communication breakdowns and why you might feel confused by it.

My muse for this story was the the 2 encounters I had yesterday with non-industry people about the romaine lettuce situation.

1. A Facebook friend posted a panic type post telling all their friends to throw all romaine lettuce in any form away and had this CNN article attached. As a food safety expert and well in tune with this particular recall, I double checked the article, then tried to explain that the product that was affected was from Salinas and that there are still viable sources of romaine lettuce that are not part of this particular recall, such as Yuma, AZ and Florida. My friend tried to correct me that this was a nationwide recall and that California was not the only affected state. The conversation eventually moved to messenger and he provided me with this second article published by the CDC. I realized then that my friend did not understand the supply chain and I was doing a terrible job explaining it. I kept using the term "Sourced" instead of "Harvested" or "Grown". Eventually he said better safe than sorry and quit engaging with me, so I don't think I ever had the chance to fully convince him that not all romaine lettuce is unsafe. Oh well, I would prefer that he is conservative with his consumption, but I wish it would've been easier to explain to him.

2. A family member texted me saying she bought romaine lettuce from Costco. She said the label said Product of Mexico, but she also noticed tiny writing saying Salinas. She wanted my opinion, so I told her without seeing the label that if it says Salinas, it's trash. Then she sent me a picture of it and I realized I was wrong! TWICE!!!!