The U.S. FDA has issued a warning against eating fresh bagged spinach, which may be a cause of an E. coli outbreak across multiple states. There have been multiple hospitalizations and one death from this outbreak. There have been no infections identified in Georgia at this point.
The strain of E. coli causing the infection is the O157:H7 strain, which causes diarrhea and can cause a form of kidney failure known as Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), which can be fatal. Children and the elderly are the most at risk of developing HUS.
So, while spinach is very good for you, for now please don’t feed your children any bagged fresh spinach. We had to throw ours out this morning! Other forms of spinach have not been linked to this illness.
