Filed by KOSU News in Health.
June 27, 2011

If you’ve got bags of sprouts — alfalfa or the spicy variety — from Evergreen Produce, throw them out, the Food and Drug Administration says.

The agency says the brand of sprouts may be linked to 20 cases of salmonella, including one bad enough to land a person in the hospital. The cases were reported in Idaho, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota and Washington.

The kind of salmonella apparently involved is the same one that led to the recall of hundreds of millions of eggs last year — not the particularly virulent strain that was linked to organic sprouts in Europe early this month and to thousands of illnesses.

Still, FDA noted in its release about the Evergreen sprouts that the Salmonella Enteritidis “is rarely seen at this frequency.”

The affected alfalfa sprouts come in 4-ounce and 16-ounce plastic bags with pre-printed labels. The product also comes in 1-pound and 5-pound plastic bags that have stick-on labels.

The spicy sprouts come in 4-ounce plastic bags with pre-printed labels and in 1-pound plastic bags with stick-on labels.

Sprouts have been implicated in many outbreaks of foodborne illness, and the FDA has long advised consumers to cook them before eating. Today, the agency repeated that advice, adding that people eating out should ask that no raw sprouts be included in their orders. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]