Cyclosporiasis: How the explosive diarrhea outbreak is affecting Chipotle and Sweetgreen.
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We still don’t know what exactly is driving our national outbreak of cyclosporiasis, the parasitic infection that has stricken thousands of Americans with explosive diarrhea. In part, you can thank the Trump administration’s self-sabotaged public health apparatus. But we do know, based on what history and science tell us, that some vegetables are likely to blame—specifically, the bagged and mass-processed salad mixes that supply lettuce and mixed greens to big-box supermarkets and ubiquitous fast-food joints across these United States.
That likely includes Taco Bell—which has now “voluntarily and temporarily” removed some unnamed ingredients from restaurants located within various Midwestern and Appalachian states—but none of this is a mere consequence of living más. The sheer reach of the Cyclospora parasite indicates other contributors at play, and despite expert recommendations to the contrary, it’s already fomenting a mild panic over produce. Shares of publicly traded fast-casual staples like Sweetgreen, Cava, and Chipotle took steady hits this week, as did T-Bell parent company Yum! Brands. And sheer uncertainty abounds over how to handle raw fruits and veggies while this parasite crawls about.
It made me wonder: Are Americans changing up their daily lunch habits and routines, whether it comes to the daily sandwiches they slap together at home or the “Mediterranean diet” bowls they grab near the office? Are they buying fewer types of green ingredients in particular or just forgoing certain places and brands altogether? I found, unsurprisingly, that the steps people have taken vary quite significantly, but they all have one common denominator: The greens are cooked—in more ways than one.
I conducted an informal lunchtime field study on Thursday near Slate’s office in Downtown Brooklyn, an area absolutely silly with “slop bowl” joints, to see how those spots were faring amid the cyclosporiasis anxiety (and the wildfire smoke). Cava, despite the broader company’s stock decline, was still packed with salad-hungry customers; so were Naya and Dig Inn. Others weren’t doing so hot. The cashier at the local Chopt admitted to me that foot traffic had slowed significantly this week, even before the smoggy conditions set in. Chipotle, as always happens whenever there’s a Cyclospora or E. coli outbreak, almost seemed as if it had been cleared out.
Things also looked a little empty at Honeygrow, though the staffers gamely insisted to me that “we’re good” since the salad chain sources produce from tristate farms instead of the megacompany that investigators have linked to the Taco Bell fiasco, Taylor Farms. A worker at Sweetgreen, meanwhile, seemed well prepared for my question, attributing that day’s slowdown to the weather and informing me that the chain not only gets its vegetables delivered from upstate farms but “washes them around four times” before adding them to the line.
“Now, the place you really need to watch out for is the supermarkets,” she concluded. “Because even if you get it in a bag, you can’t just wash the parasite off.”
David Berger, a reader based in Los Angeles, said he and other shoppers were indeed acting cautiously at the grocery store, even though California has (so far) reported no cyclosporiasis cases. “I was at a Ralphs yesterday and reaching for my usual prepackaged lettuce for my salads when I said, ‘Nah, let’s wait.’ Got stuff to make a Greek salad instead, since those are easily washed and peeled,” Berger wrote to me. “I talked to a guy in the produce department who said customers are starting to ask him about it, and lettuce products in particular are staying on shelves longer than usual.”
For those still getting their workday salads from their usual spots, hold the lettuce appears to be the ethos. In southeastern Michigan, an area particularly rampant with Cyclospora reports, a friend who unfortunately caught the bug told me that his co-workers are avoiding boxed salads at the supermarket and steering clear of regional staples like Beyond Juicery. Still, they’re putting in their usual Qdoba bowl orders—these days, sans the lettuce and even the cilantro. Katie Krzaczek, a journalist and former Slatester based in Philadelphia, did the same on Thursday with her Chipotle order, following a hard think over whether she wanted to stick with her beloved chicken Caesar wraps from a local sandwich shop.
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That points to another conundrum for the health-conscious white-collar urban workforce: Greens are everywhere and in everything. “Everything is salad!!” Vox Media’s Danielle Hewitt wrote to me. “I thought I got something with no salad greens in it yesterday. FILLED with kale. Even the sandwiches are salad!!”
So, for now, Hewitt’s solution will be to bring in her own home-cooked lunches, emphasis on cooked. She’s not alone there. Others I spoke with will be getting their nutrition from cooked veggies and bringing those in, as opposed to ordering from a slop or salad bowl service. After all, high temperatures do kill the parasite.
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“I’ve cooked arugula, spinach, and kale recently that was supposed to be served raw when it was packaged, by either a local ‘grain bowl’ place or CookUnity meal delivery service,” Erin Hoffman, a data scientist based in Harlem, wrote to me. “This started about a week ago, when I saw New York was one of the states with the most infections.” She sautés her veggies to make “basically a stir-fry,” adding, “It’s less refreshing in this hot weather than a regular raw salad, but the tradeoff feels worth it.”
Nearly everyone else I spoke to said the same thing: Even when blessed with the lush output of the summer harvest, it seems far safer to sizzle everything instead of eating from the back or fresh from the farmers market.
For now, it seems reasonable to expect that while cyclosporiasis reports stay elevated across the country, everyday lunch habits will be overhauled in the short term, hitting the very health-food spots the affluent classes normally flock to. This, alas, includes me: After freaking out a little about my salad order from earlier this week, I switched to steaming-hot vegetarian noodles from a neighborhood Chinese shop. Not your typical work lunch, to be sure, but in these atypical times, it ain’t easy staying green.
