Ball State Dining has either closed or reduced the options of all campus salad bars according to an email sent Tuesday morning.
Dining said in the email this change is because of a "national alert regarding certain lettuce, along with a shortage of other foods..."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted an alert on Monday detailing outbreaks of E. coli infections connected with romaine lettuce from the central coastal growing regions in northern and central California.
According to the CDC, there have been 43 reported cases of E. coli along with 16 hospitalizations across 12 states including Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Last semester, the CDC sent out an advisory warning consumers and retailers of romaine lettuce contaminated with the E. coli strain O157:H7 from Yuma, Arizona, the same strain affecting this batch of romaine lettuce.
John McKillip, a microbiology professor with a background in food safety and food microbiology, said most E. coli is beneficial or neutral and usually lives within the intestines. However, he said there are renegade strains — such as strain O157:H7 — which cause severe illness, tissue damage and, if left untreated, death.
McKillip said E. coli can make its way into foods due to cross-contamination and are most prominent within fresh and undercooked foods like produce, meat and milk.
He said once a renegade E. coli strain makes its way into the body, it can grow within the intestine, produce toxins and spread through the bloodstream.
“If it’s not caught quickly enough it can be very serious,” McKillip said. “It doesn’t take very many of these particular types of E. coli, the ones that we’ve heard about recently in the news, to actually do this.”
McKillip said if a consumer knows the lettuce they purchased is from a contaminated area, it should be thrown away.
However, he said consumers should generally rinse and wash their produce, particularly leafy vegetables, thoroughly with cold water. E. coli in meat products, he said, can be killed through cooking because E. coli is sensitive to heat.
“Not selling that item is certainly going to take care of the problem potentially in the short term, but it really could be anything the next time it happens,” McKillip said.
E. coli cannot be treated with antibiotics, because they could increase complications. According to the CDC, people who feel they might have the bacteria should be tested at a hospital. If the test is positive, the patient may have to go through a process of blood transfusions and dialysis.
Contact Andrew Harp with comments at adharp@bsu.edu or on Twitter @adharp24.
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