McDonald's E. coli crisis shows why vegetables are harder to keep clean than beef

Waylon Cunningham - Reuters - 25/10
Large-scale industrial produce is washed, sanitized and tested to a similar degree that beef is, but tests cannot catch sufficiently low levels of contamination, experts say.
  • Contamination of produce harder to control than that of beef, experts say
  • Cooking beef acts as a 'silver bullet' against contamination, unlike fresh produce
  • Fast-food chains urged by expert to modernize and harmonize safety standards for produce
Oct 25 (Reuters) - Moves by major U.S. fast-food chains to temporarily scrub fresh onions off their menus on Thursday, after the vegetable was named as the likely source of an E. coli outbreak at McDonald's (MCD.N), opens new tab, laid bare the recurring nightmare for restaurants: Produce is a bigger problem for restaurants to keep free of contamination than beef.
Onions are likely the culprit in the McDonald's E. coli outbreak across the Midwest and some Western states that has sickened 49 people and killed one, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said late on Wednesday. The company pulled the Quarter Pounder off its menu at one-fifth of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants.
In past years, beef patties dominated the dockets of foodborne illness lawyers, before U.S. federal health regulators cracked down on beef contamination after an E. coli outbreak linked to Jack in the Box (JACK.O), opens new tab burgers hospitalized more than 170 people across states and killed four. As a result, beef-related outbreaks became much rarer, experts say.
"Produce is a much harder problem," said Mike Taylor, a lawyer who played leadership roles in safety efforts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and today is on the board of a nonprofit called STOP Foodborne Illness.
Experts say the biggest difference is that beef is...
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