Lettuce is stupid and you shouldn't be eating it now anyway

Lettuce is stupid and you shouldn't be eating it now anyway

It's little more than "a vehicle to transport refrigerated water from farm to table."

Romaine lettuce is being pulled off the shelves across North America right now because of E.coli contamination. The Centers for Disease Control are advising Americans to not only through it away, but to then "wash and sanitize drawers or shelves in refrigerators where romaine was stored." They haven't figured out exactly where the contamination is happening yet, but most of the lettuce we are eating now is grown in California.

TreeHugger types on the east coast might think twice about drinking a plastic bottle full of California water, but in fact, if you eat lettuce, that is what you are doing. Tamar Haspel wrote a controversial article in the Washington Post where she noted that lettuce is 97 percent water:

A head of iceberg lettuce has the same water content as a bottle of Evian (1-liter size: 96 percent water, 4 percent bottle) and is only marginally more nutritious.

But shipping a bottle of Evian is easier. Katherine has described how "By the 1950s iceberg lettuce was the most commonly consumed lettuce in the U.S., with average per capita consumption around 20 pounds. Refrigeration technology developed to the point that iceberg lettuce was even shipped to American soldiers in Vietnam." Haspel writes:

Lettuce is a vehicle to transport refrigerated water from farm to table. When we switch to vegetables that are twice as nutritious — like those collards or tomatoes or green beans — not only do we free up half the acres now growing lettuce, we cut back on the fossil fuels and other resources needed for transport and storage.

Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0

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