Chipotle’s Commitment to Organics Spreads E-Coli
Chipotle is run by leftists who insist on using wholly “organic” foods in their gut-busting two-hand burritos. Organic food growers refuse to use pesticides to ward off pests and won’t use artificial clean fertilizers, opting instead for manure. And they refuse to treat their food to eliminate bacteria through irradiation. Now when pockets of people around the country eat the Chipotle organic lettuce, they get a terrible case of the death shits due to e-coli. Their solution? Switch to safely grown veggies? Irradiate to kill bacteria? Nope, they shutter stores completely, putting staffers out on the street to look for work elsewhere.
From the WaPo here:
Chipotle became the darling of the fast-food world by attracting millennials, blue-collar workers and even whole families with its promise of high-quality, sustainably sourced Mexican cuisine. But a series of food poisonings and other challenges are threatening its reputation and underscoring the difficulty of meeting the needs of a generation of diners who increasingly demand inexpensive food that is safe, natural and nutritious.
The latest crisis began last month when Chipotle closed 43 restaurants in Washington state and Oregon after health authorities linked an E. coli outbreak to six restaurants in the region. Illnesses contracted at Chipotles have since been reported in seven more states, including Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
In response to one of its biggest health and public relations challenges in its 22 year history, Chipotle has pledged to sanitize its operations, hired food safety consultants and announced that it would introduce more-stringent testing of its ingredients. Company executives and health officials say they may never know what caused the outbreak, since any contaminated ingredients would now be long gone. Chipotle has about 2,000 locations.
Bill Marler, a lawyer specializing in food-borne illness who represents many of the people who have fallen ill as a result of the outbreak, said people shouldn’t assume that just because a company touts certain kinds of food that it has taken all steps to protect them from pathogens.
“I worry that they look at food safety from the organic, non-GMO, sustainability, animal welfare standpoint,” Marler said. “And a lot of people in that space, in that agricultural movement, tend to believe that because they do those things their food is automatically safer than food that’s served at McDonald’s or Jack in the Box or Walmart. But that’s just not the case.“
As long as they continue to serve organic lettuce grown in manure instead of clean fertilizer and refuse to irradiate their produce, these outbreaks will continue. But at least they are standing behind their non-GMO and organic principles, public health be damned.
Crisis at CHIPOTLE: Food poisonings, other challenges threatening darling of fast food… https://t.co/XB9Dq4Ev0C
— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) December 10, 2015
If only they prioritized food safety over unscientific enviro posturing. GMOs are safe. Chipotle apparently isn't. https://t.co/A49Jio2gVu
— Jonathan H. Adler (@jadler1969) December 9, 2015
