Fun facts: * People killed by eating E coli spinach since the first case was reported three weeks ago:
1* People sickened by eating E coli spinach in the past three weeks:
90* Average number of poeple sickened by spinach each day since the "outbreak" began:
3.9* People in the US killed by heart disease today (which can be prevented by eating more spinach):
1,792* People in the US killed by heart disease since the spinach outbreak started:
41,216* Number of individual E. coli bacteria in the feces that one human passes in one day: between
100 billion and 10 trillion.
(Based on most recent CDC numbers from 2004. Actual number of heart disease deaths may be higher.)
Now, I love my bacon (I had four slices today at iHop - bacon was awful, but better than Quizno's), and I am hardly the healthiest eater in the world, but the crazy spinach-scare is ridiculous. I could write more about the evils of factory farming and cross-contamination from spreading untreated cow shit all over the food we grow , but why bother.