b1-66er: I'm interested in any comments you have.
b1-67er: The Packer is the Pravda of the lettuce industry. Surprisingly this piece seems fairly reasonable.
Nearly all the winter Romaine in the US would be coming from Yuma as of a few weeks ago.
Consumer reports messed up but saying stop eating all Romain in my opinion.
If it's a contaminated field, the whole field will probably be used for the same purpose (chopped, hearts,or whole heads)
This is because the extent of leaf burn, over growth, under growth, mildew, etc favors different fields for given products.
If out of 40 cases none get traced to whole heads, then the whole heads should be considered as safe as they ever have been.
Also the products touch different machinery, so if a chopped production line is contaminated, it's not going to contaminate whole heads.
I think the packing industry is right in using different language for product that might have a problem vs product that definitely has a problem.
It's pretty odd that they can't get it down to a brand.
b1-66er: great answer.
b1-67er: Consumer reports has done a poor job in the few cases where I knew something about what they were complaining about.
It's only good for them when someone else has a problem. So I don't think there are any tempering forces in their organization.
b1-66er: Another shrewd observation!
