November 20, 2018

Romaine Lettuce Is Great But You Shouldn’t Eat It Right Now Because the CDC Says It’s Unsafe

That still doesn’t mean the pretentious lettuce elitists are right.

This is a person who loves romaine lettuce but just got news from the CDC that they're going to have to stop eating it for a while. They were at the beach when they heard.Antonio Guillem/iStock

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A lot of fancy people who live in ivory towers and spend their days lounging around on plush furniture from Design Within Reach sipping premium raw water and talking about Foucault think romaine lettuce is bad and that if you eat it you are as uninspired as most American filmmakers (with the exception of David Lynch, whom they praise endlessly). But these elites are wrong.

Romaine lettuce is great. It’s the lettuce in Caesar salad! People love Caesar salad. You can buy Caesar salads on airplanes. That is how popular Caesar salads are. Romaine is great because it has a nice crunch, but it isn’t all crunch like iceberg, which the food elitists do not even dignify to acknowledge. Romaine also has a nice leafy bit, but it isn’t just a soft flaccid leaf, like bibb. I also like the taste, though I can’t describe it because I did not attend the finest schools in Paris. It’s cool that it’s sometimes chopped, but then sometimes not chopped—which leads me to a fork-and-knife Caesar, which is a fun indulgence! Not every day. No one is having fork-and-knife Caesars every day. That is a distraction. But once in a while, you want to celebrate something nice and you have a nice fork-and-knife Caesar. And it’s nice! But then some rich man with a goatee comes up to you and you don’t even know this guy but he says, “Oh yeah, if you like that, you’ll love a kale Caesar.” No, dude. Wrong. I have had a kale Caesar. They are not good. Kale Caesars are disgusting.

In general people should stop telling other people what foods they should and should not eat. Food elitism sows division in our kitchens. The only people who should be telling people what not to eat is the Center for Disease Control. When the CDC says you shouldn’t eat romaine, which is now because it has E. coli, then okay, you shouldn’t eat romaine. (Seriously, you definitely shouldn’t eat it right now.) But when the Aspen Ideas crowd tells you to stop eating romaine because “endives are better,” you should ignore them.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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