I am one of those people who is extremely suggestible, bordering on hopelessly gullible. If I read something or hear it in passing, there is an excellent chance that it will take root in my head and I will believe it forever. To this day, I firmly believe that green M&Ms are an aphrodisiac, and that alligators run wild in the New York City sewer system.
So when I first heard a rumor that organic lettuce was more likely than conventionally grown lettuce to harbor e-coli bacteria (thanks to organic farming’s use of fertilizer made from animal manure) I knew that my days of buying organic salad greens were probably over. If that sounds like an over-reaction to you, it is probably because you have never experienced a painful and gut-wrenching bout of full-on food poisoning. I have had that experience – and it changed the way I look at food forever. Ever since that horrific illness I think of myself as a “cautious consumer” when it comes to food, although I have been described in other, less charitable ways (“hysterical, neurotic twit” is a perennial favorite).
To ward off food-borne illnesses I am alert to every possible threat: I treat raw chicken with a DEFCON 2 level of caution that most people reserve for weapons-grade plutonium. Armed with bleach, antibacterial spray and my own galloping paranoia, I wage a tireless pursuit against salmonella, scouring the poultry juices off my cooking surfaces with a fierceness you would never guess at from the rest of my housekeeping skills (the dust bunnies under my bed are free to reproduce at will but my kitchen counter is so clean you could perform coronary bypass on it.) I am similarly on guard against botulism, unpasteurized dairy products and any rogue food item that may have briefly wandered over 40 degrees Farenheit. Some people, I am sure, describe food that’s been left out of the fridge for an hour as “room temperature.” I refer to such items simply as “garbage.”
And then there is the e-coli terror, which is brutal and grips me pretty much any time I eat a raw vegetable. I have tried to overcome this fear, since I realize that organically grown produce is good for the environment. Still, I can’t quite bring myself to eat organic lettuce – irrational or not, I fear that fecal matter may be lurking in every bite, just underneath the Wishbone Zesty Italian dressing. To compensate for this neurotic behavior, I am attempting to conquer my other food-related phobias. Recently, and with great fanfare, I took the courageous step of eating a cherry tomato that had been left unrefrigerated for almost 45 minutes. I also ordered a Caesar salad based solely on the waiter’s assurance that there was no raw egg in the dressing (ordinarily I would insist he confer with the chef, the maitre d’ and the Atlanta Center for Disease Control).These are baby steps, to be sure, but at least I’m trying.
If there was any justice in the world, my raging food phobias would have rendered me alluringly thin and waif-like by now. This I can assure you, is not the case. Because the simple fact is that unless you count all that pesky heart disease and diabetes, no one, in the history of the world, has ever gotten sick from an Entemann’s All Butter French Crumb Cake.
Image: The Boreka Diary