Once, a while back, I took a graduate course on food policy and laws. It was an eye opener… how painful and slow changes can be made. One of the adjuncts teaching part of the class was an attorney from a local law firm that handled the infamous Jack in the Box cases. No one wants to be named the source of infection… lots of finger pointing.
If you need a “red” in there, sun dried tomatoes always good in pasta salad!
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This whole situation is incredibly frustrating. ANYONE with a background in public health could have predicted it when agencies were scaled back. And now innocent people pay the price.
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Over and over I’m seeing raspberries, blueberries, cilantro, basil and bagged salad the most mentioned . Obviously everything should get washed but maybe with extra care. And I’ll use something like whole romaine before I use a bagged salad.
By no means overly worried but it’s not hard to make some simple modifications.
@conmama I would think you’d be ok if you avoid bagged and just rinse well. Vegetables seem less of a worry than greens.
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True. I guess they really aren’t naming heads of lettuce, just bagged.
Heads of lettuce are safer because you can remove the outer leaves where the majority of the contamination occurs. (Although this doesn’t work for E. coli contamination because that sucker gets into the inner workings of the plant from the soil).
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On the dish soap maybe it depends on what kind you use? I’m sure the minuscule amount I use would not cause stomach upset. But dish soap can disrupt the surface tension of water so that bugs like fruit flies can drown in a water trap. It makes sense to me (though may not be the case) that a drop or two of soap in water to wash berries may allow the water to get into the nooks and crannies of the raspberries and other berries better so that the cylospora protozoa can’t cling on as well. Just my personal theory.
I recently learned that in the UK when handwashing dishes they don’t typically rinse them! They wash them and then let them drip dry. Seems super gross to me, but maybe with the Fairy Washing Up Liquid it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, no problem with the vinegar method which has been researched in the study I linked above.
I’m not going to reduce my intake of fresh veggies, just gonna be sure to wash them well. We also buy a lot of local produce from farmers we know and trust.
To be clear this parasite is spread only from human poop. If your farmer washes their hands you should be good.
Dish soaps contain powerful surfactants and detergents that can disrupt membranes among other things. Human cells can be fair game, too. Handwashing dishes is OK for a short period of time because our skin is adapted well to bombardment by various agents. What kind of effect these dishwashing soaps have on our gut lining - who knows. No studies have been done because they are not intended for consumption. I’d be ok with using a drop of soap here or here for washing watermelons because whatever stays of the rind doesn’t get eaten. Ditto plates - we don’t eat them. I’d be more careful about washing herbs or berries that way because chances are much higher soapy water could remain in pores and crevasses and then ingested. I’d be more concerned about long term effects like disruption of microbiome or some changes in the gut lining than short term effects like stomach upset.
Getting off my soapbox now. 
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Tell that to the Brits!
I know. It is disgusting not to rinse dishes IMO.
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My science grad school son in Florida was telling me yesterday about going to Urgent Care two weeks ago because of some of these symptoms (he told me much more graphically!) I suggested it could be this and he started a deep dive into it while we were on the phone. He thinks that’s what he had. Just starting to feel better after two weeks. He cooks some for himself but also eats out fast food, subs, etc a good bit. Could have gotten it anywhere.
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So if it doesn’t spread person to person. But is from human feces. How does it spread to all these far apart locations? It couldn’t be one source?
Of interest (published in 2020):
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Never mind!
Our family had a foreign exchange (AFS) student from The Netherlands 60 years ago, a very nice girl from an educated family. Her father was a high school principal. That’s how she washed dishes, too. The fact that I can still remember it shows how strange it seemed to me at the time. It may be a more widespread practice than just the UK.
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I’m getting more concerned about this parasite. Just read a long article post from a chef and so many things can be cross contaminated within the fruit, even things like cucumbers, apples. What is so bad about this is you are not just sick for a couple days, but it’s reoccurring within you and you can be sick weeks or months .
I’m having my sister and her family next weekend to the lake and told her my concerns. She said she just ate fruit and was okay and her DIL from Illinois will be bringing a fruit Salad! Lol! Well I know my family won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. But this was also the family who had a wedding during Covid before shots that I did not attend
I guess I’ll be cooking frozen vegetables and having stir fry to get some nutrients. Lots of bananas.
How do we know when it’s run its course? After they find the source!? And if they never do? It’s all a bit frightening.
maybe we need to start a recipe thread to get thru this.
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Some of the problem with finding the cause of this parasite are cuts to the agency which investigates these issues.
Expect more of this in the future
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I know, it is very concerning.
Here is a pasta recipe I forgot I had.
1 box colored rotini
1/2 head cauliflower , 2 cups broccoli, 2 cups sliced carrots. Boil the carrots for 7 minutes, the other 5 minutes. Just start the carrots sooner.
1 large jar sliced black olives
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 bottle Italian dressing
After rinsing the pasta and vegetables to cool mix it altogether with the dressing and chill overnight
The heat to kill the parasite has to be 158 degrees. I read boiling water is 212 degrees.
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Is the problem limited to grocery store produce? Or also farmer’s market risk?
The article from the chef said even the farmers markets have risk. The best farmers markets are privately owned and from what I see those typically are in more rural areas.
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