Reply To: lettuce

[Ryann Kipping, MPH, RDN, LDN]

Hey! I think that is a safe bet. Buying the full heads of lettuce and thoroughly washing them at home greatly reduces the risk. From reviewing the CDC lists over the past 10 years, romaine lettuce appears to be on there most often but I don’t have any hard data on the percentage versus other greens. I haven’t seen kale or arugula on any lists, but again, that doesn’t mean these haven’t caused any illnesses. Restaurant salads are tricky because we are putting our trust in the employees there essentially. Chipotle had an ecoli outbreak in 2015 from their romaine lettuce, but they quickly recovered and millions of people are still eating there every single day without a hitch. I’m not sure about these specific restaurants, honestly, listening to your intuition is probably the most accurate way to determine which sounds odd, but we don’t really have any data to measure the risk of eating at certain restaurants.