Avoid California Romaine lettuce

Federal health and regulatory officials warned consumers Friday not to eat romaine lettuce of any kind harvested from the Salinas Valley, one of California’s major agricultural regions, because it may be contaminated with a particularly dangerous type of E. coli bacteria that has sickened 40 people in 16 states. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, if it was harvested from Salinas, a growing area in Northern California. It doesn’t matter if it is chopped, whole head, precut or part of a mix.