In the November 9, 2006 New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Dennis Maki has published "Don't Eat the Spinach- Controlling Foodborne Infectious Diseases" in which his conclusion is, "...maybe it's time to overcome our irrational fears [of irradiated foods] and act to ensure the safety of our food."

The main cause of the appearance of E.coli in our foods Maki cites, is the modern way of raising beef cattle by finishing them out on grain. What does beef have to do with spinach?

In turns out that crops such as spinach, can become contaminated with E.coli from contaminated irrigation water. Many crops are irrigated with pumped river water and this water often is contaminated with the seepage from cess pools of manure coming from beef cattle operations. But we've lived with cow manure for centuries, so why the emergence of E.coli now?

But it's not just the leakage of cow pies into the water, it's that grain "promotes enteric colonization by acid-resistant Shiga toxin- producing E.coli..." cites Malik. What that means, is that feeding cows grain changes their intestinal flora, those bugs that always live in the intestines and are generally helpful in digestion. In fact, Malik states that 2-3 per cent of cattle have E.coli at the time of slaughter.