Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine

**Emma Peaslee** (0:01)
This is Planet Money, from NPR. You know how every summer has a theme? So in 2019, Megan Thee Stallion gave us Hot Girl Summer.

**Jeff Guo** (0:12)
And a couple years later, we had Brat Summer.

**Emma Peaslee** (0:14)
Well, unfortunately, this year…

**Jeff Guo** (0:17)
Hello and welcome to Planet Money.

**Jim Gourney** (0:19)
It's Diarrhea Summer.

**Jeff Guo** (0:23)
Whomp, whomp. There is a parasite out there called cyclospora. It's infected more than 1,600 people so far, with thousands more suspected cases. This parasite, it can cause explosive diarrhea. And we're so sorry to have to say this. To the best of our knowledge, it is mostly spread by poop. Specifically, human poop.

**Emma Peaslee** (0:44)
Investigators are still trying to figure out where this came from. A lot of the people who got sick apparently ate at Taco Bell. And last week, the FDA announced that they traced the outbreak potentially to a bunch of shredded lettuce. Lettuce from a company called Taylor Farms.

**Jeff Guo** (0:57)
And Taylor Farms is very interesting because this company kind of came out of nowhere about 30 years ago and suddenly turned into the leading salad supplier in America. It's a multi-billion dollar operation that supplies not just Taco Bell, but also McDonald's and almost every store you've ever shopped in from Costco to Whole Foods to Aldi to Safeway.

**Emma Peaslee** (1:18)
And now, Taylor Farms is issuing a recall in 27 states for lettuce that could have been contaminated.

**Jeff Guo** (1:25)
And we at Planet Money, we have noticed that this outbreak is revealing two very strange and fascinating systems that both have had a huge impact on how safe our food is. Both of these systems have gone through massive revolutions in recent decades. One of them is the incredibly large-scale and lucrative lettuce industry, and the other is the complicated regulatory system that is supposed to stop these outbreaks.

**Emma Peaslee** (1:49)
So we called up two people who were each intimately involved in those revolutions. Jim Gourney helped write the very first FDA rules to prevent germs from spreading on fruit and vegetable farms.

**Jeff Guo** (2:01)
Let's see. Tell us, what did you have for breakfast today?

**Jim Gourney** (2:05)
I had some just delicious Taco Bell breakfast this morning. It was very nice. I really very much enjoyed it.

**Jeff Guo** (2:12)
And we also talked to Joe Pezzini. He was the Director of Agriculture for Taylor Farms. And he was part of the revolution that turned the lettuce industry into big lettuce.

**Joe Pezzini** (2:23)
Maybe not as big as potatoes.

**Emma Peaslee** (2:25)
Yeah, okay, potatoes are number one when it comes to fresh vegetables in the US. But the number two is actually lettuce. It is wild how much lettuce we eat. More than 25 pounds per person per year. That's more than tomatoes, more than onions, carrots, bell peppers.

**Joe Pezzini** (2:42)
So, it's a big deal, literally billions of servings a year.

**Jeff Guo** (2:45)
Yeah, over the years, the lettuce industry has become an economic juggernaut. And it is in part because of how big the industry has grown, that lettuce can also be a big pain in the, you know.

**Emma Peaslee** (2:59)
Today on the show, two revolutions. The rise of big lettuce and the fight to make sure all our fresh vegetables are safe to eat.

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**Emma Peaslee** (4:09)
So as public health officials have been trying to uncover the source of this cyclospora parasite, they're having a look into all the stops along the path of a head of lettuce. From the restaurants and stores where it's served, to the processing facilities where it's chopped and bagged, and all the way back to the farms where it's grown.