The Reverse Popeye Effect: How Spinach Changed the Way We Look at E-Coli and the World

Where were you on the day the world stopped turning? I was working at my computer but really I was watching CNN: Headline News and looking at porn. Of course the day I’m talking about was either September 14th or 15th. The day our spinach contracted the dreaded and deadly E-coli virus.

I originally titled this article, “Not Just for Cows Anymore: E-Coli Attacks Spinach”, but I changed it-out of respect to The Departed (not the new Martin Scorsese picture coming out, but those who have died from the Spinach E-Coli Blitz of 2006). So far, somewhere between 1-782 people have died because they ate bagged spinach. A sad fact that I’m sure prompted at least a couple people to say, “You know, you try and eat healthy, and look where it gets you?” So, who’s to blame here? I spent the last weekend on an all out search for answers, this is what I foundâÂ?¦

There are at least 63 possible culprits behind the great E-Coli spinach debate of ’08 (’06 didn’t rhyme, sorry), but I narrowed it down to the four most likely.

-GOD. God probably gets mad more often than we realize. For instance, look at the last three MTV Video Music Awards. A reasonable God would not have let those affairs take place. But E-coli in the spinach, could he have been responsible for this? I think so. And let me tell you why. It’s been a while since the last disease scare. Remember SARS and monkey pox? It was just spinach E-Coli’s time, that’s all.

-The Spinach Farmers. A lot of people think that Old Man Jenkins, the farmer responsible for 71% of the spinach in North America, has been drinking a little too much lately. “Oh, yesâÂ?¦Old Man Jenkins, he surely does like the bottle,” they tell me. Is it that unlikely that Old Mad Jenkins, drunk on Thunderbird wine, could have forgotten to put the anti-E-Coli spray on his spinach crops? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

-The Spinach Companies. Dole, et al. The suits. I think these guys deserve at least some of the spinach/E-Coli related blame. I mean, how do you put a product on the shelves that has E-Coli? That’s like selling virgin Budweiser. Come on, somebody dropped the ball here.

-President Bush. I don’t really think that President Bush had anything to do with the E-Coli infested spinach, but the word on the street has been telling me otherwise. This either means that Bush is behind the E-Coli shit or he isn’t. And let the record show that I initially thought that he wasn’t. But since it’s fun to blame President Bush for everything, I think we can give him this one to. Good times.