From the New York Times:
“A study in the March issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases estimates that 1,451 people died from 1998 to 2008 in outbreaks of food-borne illness. Meat and poultry accounted for 28.7 percent of deaths, dairy products (including eggs) for 14.5 percent and vegetables for 16.4 percent. But more than half of all food-borne illnesses were caused by plant foods, which made more than 4.9 million people sick. Leafy vegetables like spinach, above, led the list, with 2.1 million people falling ill after eating them.”
So should we stop eating leafy greens to “protect” our health? No, but we should pay closer attention to where are greens are coming from, how they’re grown and what happens to them along their way from field to fork. The advantage of homegrown foods is that it’s a very short trip.
