It’s been a bad week for those of us who think and care a lot about food.

First they published an article about hamburger that turned my stomach just reading it, and then followed it with health-alert information that goes directly against everything we’ve been told for the past decade.

Have you been telling your kids, over and over again, that they need to eat more fresh leafy greens to get the vitamins and minerals they need to grow strong and healthy? Well, you can stop haranguing them about it as of right now, because the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently published a health alert announcing that the leafy greens we’ve been paying for at the supermarket just might be making us sick.

On a list of 10 foods that have caused the largest numbers of food-borne illnesses in the past decade, leafy greens takes the number-one spot on the list.

Just last month, there was a huge spinach recall because salmonella was found in “cartons of bunched spinach” that had been distributed to at least a dozen states.

As it happens, spinach is just about my top favorite leafy green, and we eat a lot of it. I especially enjoy a big spinach salad, sprinkled with craisins, toasted pine nuts and feta cheese, but not liberally laced with salmonella. Those bags of “pre-washed” baby spinach have been on my shopping list almost every week, not only because it makes spinach so easy, but also because I naively thought it would be “safer” than the unwashed bunches of spinach I’d have to painstakingly wash before using. Experts at the Food and Drug Administration now say that even washing isn’t always enough to get rid of the bacterial contamination.

The real blow, however, is to my beloved hamburger.

I enjoy few things as much as I do a big, fat, juicy homemade cheeseburger with lettuce (a leafy green!), tomato, pickle, mustard and mayo. In fact, just typing those words has brought on the yen for a hamburger. I’ll not trot to the supermarket for lean ground beef, however; I’m going to grind my own from a chuck steak I have in the freezer. That is, in fact, what I often do, because I think it has more flavor than packaged hamburger, but I will now and forever more select my cut and grind my own after what I read about our supermarket hamburger.

“Scraps” (and who knows or wants to know exactly what that means) are gathered from slaughterhouses and meat processors all over the country to be used by meat packers to make hamburger, with only cursory inspection in many cases. In other words, you have little or no way of knowing where your hamburger has been or from whence it came when you pick up that package of patties or patty makings. A young woman who was a dance instructor when she ate a hamburger her mother fixed for dinner is now paralyzed from the waist down and will almost certainly never dance again thanks to the e-coli in that burger.

Sure, that’s an isolated incident, but unfortunately not that rare. The same problems that have triggered recalls and warnings about tainted beef and chicken are now creating unhealthy greens, and in many cases it has to do with bacterial contamination in water runoff. During processing, whether it’s grinding together meat from several sources or washing, cutting and bagging greens from several different farms, any pathogens present in even a small amount of the food being processed are spread throughout an entire batch and then unknowingly sent out to markets.

Both the FDA and the Agriculture Department are holding hearings around the country in an attempt to develop national handling rules and regulations for all meat processors and produce handlers, something I innocently thought already existed.

Not so. But while they struggle with the problem, I suggest we all need to be very, very careful about checking on where our food is coming from. I think I’ll avoid those pre-packaged greens for awhile and, as I said before, from now on I’m grinding my own hamburger.

Did you ever think you’d hear that eating those “healthy” greens might make you sick? I can hear the kids now: “Mom, I tried to tell you eating all that spinach isn’t good for me!”

RECIPES

Speaking of spinach, and we were, years ago a friend gave me a spinach casserole recipe that is about as sublime as spinach can get. This is decidedly not “healthy, fresh leafy green spinach” and it takes a bit of kitchen work, but if you’re planning your holiday meals already, you might want to include this outstanding spinach dish.

SPINACH CASSEROLE

¾ lb. egg noodles

5 pkgs. (10 oz.) frozen leaf spinach, thawed and squeezed dry; reserve ¾ cup of the liquid

1 t. minced garlic

¾ cup unsalted butter

½ cup flour

3 cups milk

¼ cup dry white wine

1½ cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese

7 cups (yes, 7 cups) grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1 t. salt

½ t. freshly ground black pepper (or to taste)

½ cup coarsely chopped pecans

½ cup Italian-seasoned dry bread crumbs

Cook the noodles in a pot of boiling water 5-7 min. or until just al dente; drain and transfer to a large bowl. Add the spinach and reserved liquid; combine well.

Scald the milk; keep ready on the stove. In a saucepan, cook the garlic in the butter over med. heat for about 30 seconds. Stir in the flour and cook the roux over low heat, stirring, for 3 min. Remove from heat, add the scalded milk in a stream, whisking as you add it and continue to whisk until mixture is thick and smooth. Add the wine and simmer the sauce, stirring, for 10 min.

Stir the sauce into the spinach mixture, then stir in both cheeses, salt, pepper and the pecans. Spoon the mixture into a well-buttered 9×13 baking dish. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top. Bake in the middle of a preheated 425-degree oven for 15-20 min. or until bubbly and top is browned. Serves 8-10.

As far as I know now, there have been no health problems associated with fresh cabbage, an often neglected green vegetable. You might want to give it more attention, and this salad is a great way to start.

THAI-STYLE CABBAGE SALAD

1 T. fresh lemon juice

1 t. sugar

3/4 t. salt

3 cups finely shredded cabbage

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced (about 1/3 cup)

1/3 cup grated carrot

2 T. minced fresh mint leaves (or 3/4 t. dried crumbled)

2 T. chopped fresh coriander (or use fresh cilantro)

1 T. vegetable oil

In a bowl, stir together the lemon juice, sugar and salt until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Add all remaining ingredients; toss well and serve. Serves 2.

How about substituting a fresh fruit salad for some of those leafy green salads? Nothing has been found to be afraid of in our fresh fruit, yet, and everything in this salad is on the list of healthiest fruits.

FRESH FRUIT SALAD

1-2 T. minced fresh mint leaves

4 t. sugar (you can substitute 1-2 t., or to taste, liquid organic Blue Agave, if preferred)

1/4 t. vanilla

1/2 a cantaloupe, peeled and seeded and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 3 cups)

2 red or black plums, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 2 cups)

2 cups blueberries, picked over, any stems removed

1-2 T. freshly squeezed lime juice (or to taste)

Combine sugar and mint in a large bowl; use a rubber spatula to press the mixture into the side of the bowl. Add vanilla, then add the fruits and gently toss until combined. Let stand at room temp., stirring occasionally, until the fruit releases its juices, 1/2 hr. or so. Stir in the lime juice to taste and serve. Serves 4-6.