Anybody remember that bizarre, yet totally awesome, cartoon from the early 90’s called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?
Well, it seems to me that the last quarter of 2006 is shaping up to be the real life sequel of the loony cartoon. Only this time, the gamut of garish grocery items has been expanded to other parts of the produce aisle.
In October we had spiteful spinach. Beginning in late November we had vile chives from chalupa-ville (Taco Bell). A few days ago, Jamba Juice announced a strawberry scare.

Forget being hit by a car when you cross the street. The real danger now-a-days is healthy food(?) Everybody’s so concerned with eating organically, with the fastest route from soil to stomach. But according to the FDA, that is just the problem. Fresh foods, especially ready-made, uncooked fruits and vegetables, are high risk foods because they are often consumed without being washed or otherwise processed in a way that would pulverize the pathogens.
 
The Jamba Juice strawberries that were suspected of contamination by Listeria monocytogenes were frozen!!!! I’m wondering what a quick rinse would have done to cleanse spinach that freezing would NOT have done to sanitize the strawberries.

Then there are the E. coli-tainted chives that have prompted the family of a young boy in New York to sue Taco Bell Corp. on the grounds that the restaurant chain was negligent.
This despite the voluntary and immediate recall that Taco Bell issued for chives, and their temporary shut-down of several restaurant locations that were suspected in the outbreak.
Jamba Juice was equally prompt in dealing with the suspected contamination, tossing even batches of strawberries that were not believed to be affected and cleaning all their stores. It sounds to me like the appropriate steps were made to take care of the problem, at least in terms of the handling of the produce once it was out of the field.

Who is really to blame in these cases?
It’s not that much of a separation for people to sue the makers of door handles from which they pick up rotavirus or a common cold. Or maybe we should sue the makers of pharmaceuticals for not inventing a drug to cure something, which is negligent because if they could make it, we wouldn’t get sick. I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if the legal system works as it is intended to.
Not that people shouldn’t be protected, or advocated for, but come on! You can sue someone for doing something to you, but you shouldn’t be able to sue someone for not stopping something from happening to you. It all seems backward, somehow.