Enough Is Enough, Lettuce

Do you have a salad kit in your fridge? If it’s a Fresh Express Sunflower Crisp Chopped Salad Kit, then you should probably consider throwing it into the garbage can, setting said garb can aflame, leaving the charred wreck of what once was your home with no plans to return, writing a letter to your husband saying, “There’s been a horrible accident, Bernard…” using your non-dominant hand so he won’t recognize the handwriting, mailing it, Gone Girl-ing your way to another state, and assuming the persona of Blanchard St. Clair, widow farmeresse of the great corn plains.

Or, if you’re At Capacity Right Now, you could just throw it away, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised on Monday. Either way, don’t eat it!

You see, there’s been an outbreak of E. coli linked to these Fresh Express salad kits. The outbreak has already caused eight known infections in three different states, as CNN reported on Tuesday. Three of those people have been hospitalized, and one of them developed kidney failure—though, thankfully, the outbreak hasn’t led to any deaths.

This is happening a week after another E. coli outbreak caused by lettuce (though the two outbreaks involved different strains). As the CDC warned on Dec. 4, romaine lettuce that comes from the Salinas, California, growing region has also been contaminated with E. coli, leading to more than 100 reported infections in 23 different states. More than half of those people were hospitalized, though, thankfully, no one has died.

There’s also the other romaine-related E. coli outbreak that contaminated Missa Bay brand lettuce last month, and then the other other E. coli outbreak earlier this year. After all we’ve done for lettuce (eaten her, pretended she wasn’t just crunchy water, let her hang out with an underrated queen like canned baby corn), this is how she repays us? So disrespectful.

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