South Africa: Vegetables Cultivate Young Minds

West Cape News (Cape?Town)

Peter Luhanga

21 June 2011

When primary school pupils in Du Noon were asked where vegetables came from, they answered "Fruit and Veg City".Shocked Sophakama Primary school social science teacher Sergeant Tshuma said when he told them that vegetables were grown in the soil they didn't believe him and told him he was lying.

In order to convince them, he that he decided to start growing spinach on the school grounds. That was two years ago. Now, the school's spinach cultivation is so successful it is a staple ingredient in the stews and soups provided for the children by the school feeding scheme and sales of it to surrounding residents generate some income for the school.

The vegetable garden not only educates the children about food and the environment, but about business as well, said Tshuma, as the spinach was sold to residents for R5 a bunch.

"It's an integration of theory and practice. What they learn in class they practice in the garden," said Tshuma.

Grade 5 pupil, Somikazi Filane, 10, said it was exciting to participate in growing the school's spinach crop.

"I have learnt about growing plants," said Filane.

Another pupil, Athini Plaatgie, 10, who is in grade 4, said she has learnt that plants grow from the soil and what they need to flourish.

Grade 4 pupil Analiswa Papiyana, 9, said planting and taking care of the vegetables has helped her learn about the environment, as Tshuma lobbied for a water tank to collect rain water from the school roof in order to conserve water.

"We use tap water sparingly," he said.

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Grilled vegetables: How to make sure they can take the heat

McClatchy Newspapers

--

Daylight hours are growing longer and farmers markets are filling up with fresh veggies galore.

Why not enjoy some of the summer bounty on the grill? Many cooks shy away from grilling vegetables because they often fall between the grates, or they're too soft or delicate, and they stick when placed directly on the grill. But there are just as many reasons to give them a try.

no more fear of falling (into the briquettes)

Large, firm vegetables -- Halved potatoes, thick slices of onion, large portobello mushrooms and whole sweet bell peppers can be cooked just like a piece of meat.

Smaller, softer vegetables -- Use a vegetable basket (shown here), which has holes or slits for heat and smoke to circulate. If placed over high direct heat, you can get the nice caramelization and smoky flavors of grilled foods. You also can place the grill basket off to the side to cook more slowly, especially if you close the lid.

Foil wrapping -- It's an easy way to grill vegetables, although it doesn't add much smoky flavor. Also, a cast-iron skillet can be placed directly on the grill to stir-fry or saute all kinds of vegetables.

Before you light the grill -- Rinse, trim and cut up the vegetables. If the recipe calls for precooking, bring a small amount of water in a sauce pan to boiling. Add vegetables and simmer, covered, for the time specified in the recipe. Drain well, then generously brush vegetables with olive oil, margarine or butter before grilling to prevent them from sticking to the grill rack. Grill over medium or medium-hot coals. You'll need long-handled stainless steel tongs to move vegetables on, off and around the grill.

how to grill 'em

Here are some grilling tips from Good Housekeeping and Bon Appetit magazines:

Fresh baby carrots -- Cut off carrot tops. Wash and peel. Precooking time: 3 to 5 minutes. (See above under Before you light the grill about precooking.) Grilling time: 3 to 5 minutes.

Eggplant (below) -- Cut off top and blossom ends. Slice 1/2 inch thick crosswise (globe) or lengthwise (Japanese). Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Do not precook. Grilling time: 8 minutes. They're done when slightly charred and tender. They're great for a meatless burger, baked mozzarella and tomato sauce, or a quick dip (mashed with fresh lemon juice, cumin and chopped garlic).

Fennel -- Snip off feathery leaves. Cut off stems. Precook whole bulbs for 10 minutes. Cut bulbs into 6 to 8 wedges. Grilling time: 8 minutes.

Leeks -- Cut off green tops; trim bulb roots and remove 1 or 2 layers of white skin. Precooking time: 10 minutes or until tender. Halve lengthwise. Grilling time: 5 minutes.

Sweet peppers -- Remove stem. Quarter peppers. Remove seeds and membranes. Cut peppers into 1-inch-wide strips. Do not precook. Grilling time: 8 to 10 minutes. Done when skin is charred or blackened and blistered. Great for pizza topping, sandwiches, scrambled eggs.

New potatoes (left) -- Halve potatoes. Precooking time: 10 minutes or until almost tender. Grilling time: 10 to 12 minutes.

Zucchini -- Wash; cut off ends. Quarter lengthwise into long strips. Do not precook. Grilling time: 5 to 6 minutes. Done when slightly charred and tender. Great for quesadillas, pasta with pesto, and goat cheese.

Crookneck squash -- Rinse, trim and slice 1 inch thick. Do not precook. Grilling time: 5 to 6 minutes.

Plum tomato -- Wash. Grilling time: 5 minutes: Done when skin is blistered and charred. Also great for polenta with basil and balsamic vinegar, and burgers.

Vine-ripened tomato -- Wash. Grilling time: 12 minutes. Done when skin is charred and split. Great for a gratin with bread crumbs and salsa.

Corn -- Remove husk and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grilling time: 15 minutes. Done when slightly charred and tender. Also great for a saute of lima beans and green beans, and pureed corn soup.

Red onion (right) -- Peel; halve through root end. Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grilling time: 5 minutes. Done when slightly charred and tender. Great for tuna salad and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Here are some recipes to try on the grill.

GRILLED MEXICAN CORN

1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 ears corn

Cooking spray

1/4 cup low-fat sour cream

6 lime wedges

Prepare grill. Combine first 3 ingredients. Place corn on a grill rack that's coated with cooking spray; cook 12 minutes or until corn is lightly browned, turning frequently. Place corn on a platter; drizzle with sour cream. Sprinkle with chipotle mixture. Garnish with lime wedges. Makes 6 servings.

-- Cooking Light (cookinglight.com)

PACKET-ROASTED BALSAMIC GREEN BEANS AND PEPPERS

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons pure maple syrup

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 ounces green and/or yellow beans

2 bell peppers, thinly sliced lengthwise

1/3 cup toasted pine nuts

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Start with eight 20- to 24-inch-long pieces of foil. Layer two sheets for each of four packets (the double layers will help protect the contents from burning). Arrange ingredients on one half of each double layer. Fold foil over ingredients and tightly seal the packets by crimping and folding the edges together. Grill over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating packets to another spot on the grill about halfway through to ensure even cooking. Let packets rest unopened for 5 minutes. Drizzle vegetables with a little extra vinegar just before serving.

Note: To toast pine nuts, place in a small dry skillet and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant and lightly browned, 2 to 4 minutes.

-- Eating Well (eatingwell.com)

Grilled Summer Fresh Peppers

1 each yellow, orange and red pepper

18 fresh basil leaves, divided

18 cherry tomatoes

1 cup shredded low-moisture part-skim Mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup balsamic vinaigrette dressing, divided

Heat grill to medium-high heat.

Cut each pepper lengthwise in half. Remove and discard seeds. Fill each half with 1 basil leaf and 3 tomatoes; top with cheese. Drizzle evenly with 2 tablespoons dressing.

Grill 8 to 10 minutes, or until peppers are crisp-tender.

Place peppers on platter; top with remaining basil leaves and dressing. Makes 6 servings.

Make ahead: Fill peppers as directed; place in large resealable container. Refrigerate up to 8 hours before grilling as directed.

-- Kraftrecipes.com

Simply Sensational Grilled Vegetables

1 cup Italian dressing, divided

2 pounds sliced fresh vegetables (such as zucchini, red peppers, yellow peppers, green peppers, new potatoes or squash)

Pour 1/2 cup of the dressing over vegetables in shallow dish; cover.

Refrigerate 1 hour to marinate. Drain; discard dressing.

Preheat greased grill to medium heat. Grill vegetables 7 to 9 minutes on each side, or until desired doneness, turning and brushing with remaining 1/2 cup dressing. Makes 6 servings, about 1 cup each.

Use your broiler: Prepare vegetables as directed. Preheat broiler. Place vegetables on rack of broiler pan 4 to 6 inches from heat. Broil 7 to 9 minutes on each side, or until desired doneness, turning and brushing with remaining 1/2 cup dressing.

-- Kraftrecipes.com

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Grilled Chicken And Vegetables A Tasty Quick-Fix Dinner

 Grilled chicken and veggies create a quick summertime meal. (By Christopher Prosperi, By Christopher Prosperi / June 23, 2011)

When the family is hungry, the sooner dinner arrives on the table, the better. That's when a simple recipe with a quick cooking time makes the most sense. With this recipe for grilled chicken breast and vegetables, the most time-consuming part is fanning a charcoal fire. A gas grill makes the cooking process a cinch.

Grilling the chicken breast until cooked through but still juicy is the goal. For easier handling and quicker cooking, we cut the chicken into 3-inch pieces. A grill heated to medium high will sear the outside of the chicken quickly. If the chicken begins to char before the interior is cooked, move the pieces to a slightly cooler side of the grill. Chicken should be cooked to 165 degrees, or until the juices run clear.

It's hard to resist the smoky flavors of foods cooked on the grill. Even kids — or adults — who push their vegetables to one side of the plate will enjoy zucchini and tomatoes when seasoned with oil and spices and fire-roasted.

If there are leftovers, pile them on slices of ciabatta bread for a quick lunch. Serve cold or grilled panini-style.

GRILLED CHICKEN AND ZUCCHINI

>>2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 3-inch pieces

>>2 tablespoons olive oil

>>1 teaspoon paprika

>>1 teaspoon kosher salt

>>1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Mix olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl. Add chicken, and turn to coat with oil mixture. Set aside for 10 minutes. Put chicken on a preheated grill (medium-high heat), and cook for 3 to 5 minutes on each side, or until fully cooked. Place on platter, and set aside.

For the grilled vegetables:

>>3 large zucchini, about 2 pounds total, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices

>>4 large plum tomatoes, cut in half

>>2 tablespoons olive oil

>>1 teaspoon kosher salt

>>1 teaspoon paprika

>>2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the olive oil, salt, paprika and oregano. Add the vegetables, and toss until coated with the oil mixture. Place on the preheated grill, and grill for 1 to 2 minutes on each side. Place on the platter with the chicken, and serve with a tossed salad. Serves 4 to 6.

.

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Garden offers food to North Hills pantries

Fresh vegetables, grown in Bellevue, soon will supplement the nonperishable items clients receive at North Hills Community Outreach's food pantries in Bellevue and Hampton.

In fact, some already are being harvested from an organic garden at 119 Davis Ave. The produce grown will be given to the 400 to 500 families who use the pantries every month. If the garden flourishes, the outreach will share with other local food pantries.

In 2008, Teresa Amelio of McCandless, a North Hills Community Outreach volunteer, donated the one-third acre of land that is the site of the garden with the vision that fruits and vegetables grown there would be given to pantry families. The garden is named the Rosalinda Sauro Sirianni Memorial Garden in memory of her mother, who died in 1983.

Ribbon-cutting for the garden will be held there at 1:30 p.m., Sunday, followed by a garden tea party at the James Porch Gazebo next to Bayne Library, 34 N. Balph Ave. from 2 to 6 p.m.

The back of the home on Center Avenue in Bellevue, where Mrs. Amelio grew up, faces Davis Avenue and the garden across the street. She remembers selling some of the vegetables grown organically by her Italian immigrant parents, Luigi and Rosalinda Sirianni, to neighbors. Mrs. Amelio, now in her 70s, and her husband Salvatore are putting the land to further good use,

"I'm so happy because that land has been sitting there for years and I wanted to do something with it. I got involved with NHCO and asked if they could use it. I'm so pleased the canned foods clients receive will be enriched with the items grown in the garden."

North Hills Community Outreach was formed after a devastating flood in 1986 ravaged parts of the North Hills. Religious and community leaders joined to help flood victims and the outreach was incorporated in 1987 with the mission of People Helping People.

The organization, headquartered in Hampton, has expanded to include satellite offices in Millvale and Bellevue, as well as programs such as Free Rides for Seniors, Community Auto, and numerous others.

To reclaim Ms. Amelio's ground, though, volunteers first had to remove weeds, brush, trees and thousands of pounds of bricks, rusted metal, broken glass and other debris that had accumulated over the past 20 years.

The Siriannis are also remembered through the Luigi Sirianni Family Memorial Field, a ballfield that was donated in 1994 by Mrs. Amelio's brothers, Nicola and Ernest, to the Bellevue-Avalon Girls Athletic Association.

Outreach garden coordinator Rosie Wise watered the garden, which she said was planted using the sloping contours of the property to reduce soil erosion and water run-off. Bellevue agreed to allow the agency to tap into the water line at the borough's utility building across the street from the garden.

The garden also saw help from community members.

Retired carpenter George Becker, 63, of Bellevue, worked on a metal mesh fence to keep the deer at bay. Mr. Becker said the gate was built wide enough for a truck to access the shed he also built, along with helping with the fence and compost bin.

"These people are so idealistic. They work hard and still have fun," Mr. Becker said of the outreach staff and volunteers. He said union carpenters volunteered to set the fence posts.

Two raised beds -- one four feet high and the other, two feet -- contain herbs and are designed to accommodate volunteers who find it difficult to stoop. The garden also has rows of onions, pole and bush beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, cherry and regular tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, said Ms. Wise, who has worked at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens and as a soil conservation technician for the Department of Agriculture.

Close to 100 volunteers logged 250 hours since March, she said.

The garden was aided by a $75,000 two-year grant from Allegheny Grows, split among new urban gardens in Bellevue, Wilkinsburg and Penn Hills. It provided technical assistance, plants and material, according to Liza Walrath, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer events coordinator at Community Outreach.

The program is in collaboration with Pittsburgh Grows, which encourages city gardening, and the grant also is providing second-year costs for gardens in Millvale and McKees Rocks. Source of the money is federal community development block grants.

"We had the soil tested and it was great for gardening," Ms. Walrath said.

Ms. Walrath is chairwoman of a jazz-age garden party celebrating the garden's grand opening.

The ribbon-cutting party will include live music, refreshments provided by local businesses, a flower market, croquet and activities for youngsters. Theme attire is encouraged. The event is free; donations will benefit the garden. For information, call 412-487-6316, option 2.

Volunteers are needed to weed, water, harvest, and deliver the food to the pantries and cut grass. To help, contact Rosie Wise at 412-307-0069 or rmwise@nhco.org.

First published on June 23, 2011 at 5:52 am

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Scientists: No Proof Vegetables Are Behind Europe's E. Coli Outbreak

Published June 03, 2011

| NewsCore

Scientific analysis has failed to show that contaminated vegetables are behind Europe's deadly E. coli outbreak, the EU's Reference Laboratory for E. coli in Rome said Friday.

"Alarmism over the consumption of vegetables is not justified ... since laboratory analyses do not support the hypothesis that contaminated vegetables were the source of the infection," the laboratory said in a statement.

The laboratory, part of Italy's Higher Institute for Health (ISS), said it would be sufficient to follow basic kitchen hygiene to avoid infection, such as washing your hands after handling food and ensuring knives are clean.

"The only previous detection of a similar strain, although with a different serotype was carried out in ISS laboratories in relation to a small epidemic of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) in France," it said.

HUS, a kidney disease, usually affects children and can be life-threatening.

The laboratory said the strain "cannot be considered mutant... but rather a strain originating from the acquisition of new genes."

The current outbreak has now spread to 12 countries but appears to be stabilizing, a senior German doctor said Friday, as the death toll rose to 19.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile defended an earlier false alarm on organic Spanish cucumbers that angered Madrid, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he would not allow Russians to "get poisoned" by EU vegetables.

All but one of the fatalities since the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) poisoning began last month have occurred in Germany. A patient, who died in Sweden, had recently returned from there.

Regional German health authorities have reported more than 2,000 cases of people falling ill with EHEC poisoning, with symptoms including stomach cramps, diarrhea, fever and vomiting.

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Russia bans EU vegetables due to E.coli fears

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, Russian media cited the head of the consumer protection agency as saying.

"A ban on the import of fresh vegetables from EU countries takes effect from this morning," Rospotrebnadzor head Gennady Onishchenko said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain over the outbreak, which has killed at least 16 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries. Its source is unknown.

Onishchenko said his agency had issued an order on the ban to Russia's customs service and also ordered raw vegetables from the EU removed from store shelves, Interfax reported. He urged Russians to be alert and to eat domestically grown vegetables

"We are imposing a ban because the situation has not been brought under control in a month. The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted Onishchenko as saying.

"The situation has worsened sharply in recent days, and so we are forced to take these extremely unpopular measures."

The German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday, a quarter of them involving a life-threatening complication of a type of E. coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC).

EU officials said three cases had also been reported in the United States, adding that most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently travelled to the country.

EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, however, said the number of new cases appeared to be in decline.

Onishchenko said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax reported.

(Reporting by Steve Gutterman; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Jon Boyle)

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Russia bans EU vegetables over E.coli, EU protests

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia banned imports of fresh vegetables from the European Union Thursday, accusing Brussels of sowing chaos by failing to give sufficient information about a deadly E.coli outbreak.

The European Commission said Moscow's move was disproportionate. The outbreak has killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill, and food poisoning is spreading from Germany across Europe.

Russia extended a ban on German and Spanish fresh vegetables to cover the European Union because it said Moscow had not been given proper information on the situation despite repeated requests. The source of the infection is still unclear.

"The kind of things that have been happening in the EU for a whole month do not even happen in African countries," Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, told Reuters by telephone.

"I would call the action of the EU health regulators and the other European bodies responsible for this disgrace unprofessional and irresponsible," said Onishchenko.

The European Commission urged Russia to end its ban immediately.

"The European Commission protested to the Russian Federation this afternoon against the Russian ban imposed earlier today on all EU vegetable exports to Russia, and requested the immediate withdrawal of the measure," the EU executive said in a statement.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said earlier that the EU Health Commission John Dalli would write to Moscow to express their objections.

The ban comes a week before Russia, whose leaders have often accused Europe and the United States of trying to force their rules on it, hosts EU leaders at a summit in the city of Nizhny Novgorod.

Russia is under pressure from Europe and other trade partners to announce how it will end protectionist measures, including meat import restrictions, as part of its push to join the World Trade Organization this year after an 18-year effort.

Shops in Moscow prepared to dump EU vegetables and consumers expressed a mixture of scorn and pride at the ban, while the foreign ministry quipped that Russian cucumbers were best.

"Every state will protect its market in order not to get these 'gifts', these cucumbers," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.

"As for the quality of cucumbers, I have tried many myself, but I think that those from the Moscow region are the best -- especially the ones from my own garden," he said.

High-end Russian grocery store chain Azbuka Vkusa, which sources more than 40 percent of all its fresh vegetables and fruits from Europe, said it could replace EU produce with Turkish, Azeri and Russian goods.

Toting a shopping basket filled with grapes and fresh vegetables at a store up the street from the Bolshoi Theater, pensioner Vyacheslav Yegorov called the ban "ridiculous."

"I am not afraid of buying vegetables from any country here... This thing will blow over and be forgotten tomorrow."

But another shopper, Natalya Kuzmina, said that imported food is more likely to have been treated with chemicals and that the ban would help domestic farmers.

Russian Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik played down speculation that Russia could face shortages, saying that imports of vegetables are low in the summer and that most cucumbers and tomatoes do not come from EU nations.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegetables from Russia were just 29 million euros, EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel, Alexander Reshetnikov and Elizabeth Shockman in Moscow; writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Kelland, editing by XXX)

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Farmer's Market Pickles Summer Vegetables

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT)-- Learn how to can and pickle your favorite summer vegetables this year at the Market Square Farmer's Market. Try a quick and easy recipe and join a free workshop to learn more.

The Market Square Farmer's Market is just one of the 25 farmer's markets in the nation that has been awarded with a canning grant. Therefore, they are holding workshops through out the summer where you can learn more.

The first workshop is this Saturday June 4th where you can learn to make Strawberry Jam at 10:00, Strawberry Syrup at 11:00 and Strawberries in Syrup at 12:00. The sessions are free and open to the public.

If you want to try pickling on your own; here's the two recipes we made this morning.

Sesame-Ginger Spring Vegetables

Yield: 1 qt.
1/2 lb. Snow Peas, stems removed
2 bulbs kohlrabi, peeled and cubed
3 small carrots, peeled and sliced
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 1/4 C. rice vinegar
1 1/4 C. Water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
4 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1 Tbsp. Ginger
1 Tbsp.Sesame Seeds
1 tsp.- 3 tsp. hot pepper flakes (optional)

1. Place the snow peas and kohlrabi in a 1 qt. mason jar. Add the ginger, sesame seeds, garlic and hot peppers (optional).
2. In a saucepan, combine the oil, vinegar, sugar and salt and bring to a boil, stirring. Once sugar and salt are dissolved, remove from heat and add the cold water. Once completely cooled, cover the snow peas with the brine. Let stand until the brine has cooled, then cover and refrigerate overnight or for up to 2 weeks to brine, before consuming.

Dilly-Spiced Spring Onions
Yield: 1/2 pt.

5 spring onions, finely chopped
1/4 C. white wine vinegar
1/4 C. water 1 tsp. kosher salt (I use Diamond brand; use less if you’re using Morton or table salt)
1 tsp. sugar
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
2 hot peppers, whole or 1 tsp. dried cayenne powder
1 Tbsp. dill, chopped

1. Place the onions in a small mason jar. add the garlic, peppers (or cayenne) and dill.
2. In a saucepan, combine the vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Let cool to warm, and cover the onions with the brine. Let stand until brine and cooled and then cover and refrigerate overnight or for up to 2 days before consuming.

Also, Saturday June 11th from 10:00-12:00 p.m. there will be a Chef's Challenge where two chefs will compete to make the best dish. The challenge is free but you can buy a ticket to enter and win a three course meal for two from the featured restaurant.

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Russia Won’t Lift Ban on EU Vegetables to Enhance Its WTO Bid, Putin Says

 Russia won’t lift a ban on imports of vegetables from Europe, imposed after an E.coli outbreak, to appease the European Union and enhance its bid to join the World Trade Organization, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. Photographer: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr./Bloomberg

Russia won’t lift a ban on imports of vegetables from Europe, imposed after an E.coli outbreak, to appease the European Union and enhance its bid to join the World Trade Organization, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

More than 1,600 people across Europe have been infected and 17 have died in the outbreak that started in Germany, according to the World Health Organization. The German government initially said cucumbers from Spain were to blame, though tests failed to confirm this. Spain will seek EU aid to compensate for damage to its cucumber producers.

Russia suspended imports of German and Spanish tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers on May 30 in response to the outbreak and yesterday extended the ban to all EU fresh vegetables. The EU has sought an immediate withdrawal of the Russian ban. The bloc’s envoy in Moscow today said that Russia, the largest economy outside the WTO, could follow its “rules and principles” even now, the Interfax news service reported.

“All the countries of Europe have been quarrelling over these cucumbers and now they’re trying to drag us into it,” Putin told reporters in Sochi today. “The EU says Russia’s decision contradicts the spirit of the WTO, but we can’t poison people because of some spirit.”

Russia is seeking clarification from the EU on the quality of its vegetables, Putin said, adding that he’ll review the grounds for the government’s import ban.

Russia’s consumer-safety watchdog said the government may lift the ban if German and EU authorities inform Russia of the cause of the outbreak and explain how it spread. The EU is involved in “intensive work” to identify the source, Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli said on June 1.

The Russian agency is also monitoring passengers and vehicles that arrive from countries affected by the outbreak.

Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said today that Russia has enough vegetables to meet domestic demand without imports from the EU. The 27-nation bloc accounted for 11 percent of Russian tomato imports and 5 percent of its cucumbers last year, according to the ministry.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ekaterina Shatalova in Sochi at eshatalova@bloomberg.net; Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow msysoyeva@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Sweetman at msweetman@bloomberg.net; Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

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Russia bans EU vegetables over E. coli scare

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Thursday banned the import of fresh vegetables from European Union countries because of a deadly bacteria scare, as Germany kept up the hunt for the source of the bug that has killed 17 people.

Announcing the ban, Russia's top consumer protection official took the opportunity to slam European Union food safety standards.

"The fresh vegetable import ban affecting all EU countries went into effect this morning," consumer protection agency chief Gennady Onishchenko said, Interfax reported.

Vegetables already shipped in from the European Union "will be seized across Russia", Onishchenko said.

Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) -- a disease that causes bloody diarrhoea and serious liver damage.

The move came as officials in Germany, which has suffered all but one of the 17 fatalities, kept up the hunt for the cause of the deaths. Hundreds more people have fallen sick.

On Monday, Russia banned fresh vegetable shipments from Spain and Germany, warning the sanction could soon be applied to all EU countries if it failed to receive a proper explanation as to how the fatal disease was being spread.

But German and EU officials have been unable to find the cause of the outbreak. After initially blaming it on organic cucumbers imported from Spain, they backed off from that position on Wednesday.

Onishchenko said orders to stop all incoming European vegetable shipments had already been issued to Russian customs authorities.

"I call on people to forgo imported vegetables in favour of domestic products," he said.

Onishchenko, one of Russia's most outspoken health officials, has in the past thrown himself into the centre of political and diplomatic disputes.

On Thursday, he said the latest outbreak proved that Russia's food safety standards were being more professionally observed than those in Europe.

"This shows that Europe's lauded health legislation -- one which Russia is being urged to adopt -- does not work," he said.

"I am far from believing that my colleagues in Germany and other European countries lack professional skills," he said.

"But their hands are tied by an overly-politicised atmosphere."

Onishchenko added that "it was obvious" that Spanish cucumbers could not have been the true cause of the problem.

Russia has been quick in the past to ban the import of products that are also produced locally.

While this has ostensibly been on health grounds, some critics have accused the authorities of using this as a pretext to unfairly back Russian producers.

Spain has threatened to file a suit on behalf of its farmers against German authorities because of their initial claims and may seek financial compensation.

Germany's national disease centre has also admitted that the outbreak started nearly two weeks before the first infections were reported in mid-May.

The European Commission on Wednesday lifted its warning over the Spanish cucumbers after saying it could "not confirm the presence of the specific serotype (O104), which is responsible for the outbreak affecting humans."

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Vegetables off shelves from 4 Europe states

Supermarkets and hypermarkets in the Capital have removed vegetables imported from four European countries as fears of E.coli contamination spread in Europe this week. Vegetables imported from Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany have been removed from the shelves, as fears of E.coli contamination spread in Europe this week.

The UAE also imposed a temporary ban on import of cucumbers from a number of European countries including Spain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, Wam reported.

?We removed lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce imported from the European nations this morning in line with the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority?s direction,? confirmed an executive at Lulu Hypermarkets in the capital.

The Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFD) on Wednesday morning directed the supermarkets to remove the vegetables from these countries from the shelves, following similar action taken by several European nations.

UAE advisory for travellers?

UAE residents travelling to and Emiratis living in European countries swept by E.coli outbreak are advised to avoid eating vegetables for their own health safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a travel advisory on Wednesday.

Isa Abdullah Al Kalbani, Director of Citizens? Affairs at the ministry, said the ministry, in coordination with the UAE Consulate in Munich, has been closely monitoring the E.coli outbreak in some European countries, including Germany, Spain, Denmark and Sweden. The deadly bacteria has killed scores of people. ? Wam

The authority said: ?It suspect that the vegetables which are imported from Spain, Germany, Denmark or the Netherlands may be contaminated?, an executive said.

The officials also took samples of vegetables to carry out chemical examination.

However, in Dubai, prominent retailers said they had not received any instruction from the Food Control Department of the local municipality to take any of the vegetables imported from the European countries off the shelves.

Staff in-charge of fresh produce in many supermarkets and hypermarkets said the samples of the salad vegetables from European countries were cleared in tests. ?All of us are confused. We are waiting for updates from the municipality,? a hygiene officer from a popular supermarket chain said.

Municipal officials said they had put strict control measures in place over the imports of certain vegetables from a few European countries. However, they were not clear if a total ban would be imposed on the vegetables in question, like cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes.

?Reports from Spain and Germany are changing day by day. The actual source of the outbreak is still not clear. We are closely monitoring the situation. A total ban may be imposed on more vegetables and products once there is clear information about the cause of the outbreak,? an official from the Dubai Municipality said.

A senior executive at Lulu Hypermarkets in the Capital said that vegetables are available in large quantities at its outlets dispelling the impact of the action. ?There is no impact of the removal of these vegetables on the retail business,? he said. ?We source our vegetables from the UAE, Oman, India and other countries. So we are not entirely dependent on the European nations,? he said.

 

View the original article here

EU Vegetables Destroyed as Deadly E. Coli Damps Demand

June 03, 2011, 12:11 PM EDT By Tony C. Dreibus

(Adds Copa-Cogeca comments starting in seventh paragraph.)

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- European Union vegetable supplies are being destroyed as demand is curbed by the deadliest outbreak of E. coli on record, with producers losing millions of euros a day because of trade restrictions.

Cucumber, lettuce and tomato prices are tumbling and orders are being canceled, said Philippe Binard, general delegate of Freshfel Europe, which represents the industry. The market is at “an alarming standstill,” according to the Brussels-based group. The losses are forcing some farmers out of business, said Copa-Cogeca, an agricultural lobby group based in Brussels.

“This is having a serious impact because we’re dealing with perishable products,” Binard said by phone today. “We can’t store it and say that in six months, when the market is better, we’ll ship it.”

Infections have been found in 10 European nations and the World Health Organization says at least 16 people died. Some have a rare strain which releases a toxin damaging kidneys and other organs. While German officials are advising consumers to avoid raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, the original source is most likely cattle, said Rowland Cobbold, a veterinary public health researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Russia, which according to Freshfel buys 400 million euros ($580 million) of EU vegetables a year, banned imports yesterday. That contravenes World Trade Organization rules, Fernando Valenzuela, head of the EU delegation to Russia, was cited by RIA Novosti as saying. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said today he won’t “poison people” to satisfy WTO rules.

‘Very Isolated’

“Russia is really overreacting to the situation,” Binard said. “The ban applies to all EU countries and to all vegetables, when we know the problem seems to be very isolated to some parts of Germany.”

Spain’s agriculture industry is losing 200 million euros a week and German farmers are losing about 1 million euros a day, said Amanda Cheesley, a spokeswoman for Copa-Cogeca. That should decline after cucumbers from the southwestern European country were ruled out as the source of the bacteria, she said. None tested positive for the type causing the outbreak, the EU said in a statement.

’Nothing Sold’

“The Spanish were the most hard hit so they’re quite angry,” Cheesley said. “When you have an announcement like that, consumption falls for all cucumbers in all member states. In Belgium on Tuesday, cucumber sales were 25 percent for 25 percent of the price. In Spain, nothing sold. Hopefully it will pick up a bit now that they’ve cleared Spanish cucumbers.”

Farmers in Italy, the biggest European vegetable producer, harvested 13.65 million metric tons in 2009, the most recent data from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization show. Spain was the second-biggest with 13.63 million tons. China is the world’s biggest vegetable producer followed by India, according to the UN.

Italian cucumbers sold for 15 cents (22 U.S. cents) a kilogram (2.2 pounds) as of May 29, compared with 70 cents at the end of April, according to data from Instituto di Servizi per il Merca.

‘Supply Chain’

“This is impacting the whole supply chain,” Binard said. “The producer is obviously the first to be affected. Behind him are the people who are packing and shipping and the importers and the wholesalers and the retailers are all being affected. A lot of transport is being canceled and it’s not just in Germany, it’s a situation affecting the whole of Europe.”

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by telephone yesterday and agreed that the two countries will try to get aid for European farmers affected, according to an e-mailed statement from the press office of the German government.

--Editors: Sharon Lindores, Nicholas Larkin

To contact the editor responsible for this story Tony Dreibus at tdreibus@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net.

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Russia Bans EU Vegetables Due to E.coli Outbreak, EU Protests

Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, a move branded "disproportionate" by Brussels.

Grady Coppell | Digital Vision | Getty Images

German health officials said the infections, which have killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries, could go on for months and their precise source may never be pinned down.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain due to the outbreak, which German officials originally blamed on contaminated cucumbers imported from Spain before backtracking and apologising to Madrid.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax news agency reported.

The new ban would take effect on Thursday morning, he said, prompting an immediate protest from the European Union.

Spain is threatening legal action over the crisis. It wants compensation for its farmers, who say lost sales are costing them 200 million euros ($287 million) a week and could put 70,000 people out of work.

The European Commission has said it is looking at what it could do about the impact on producers.

Reinhard Burger, head of the German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), admitted the precise source of the disease outbreak may never be found.

"There still is no indication of a definable source," Burger told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, adding it was too early to say that a plateau of new cases had been reached.

The RKI reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday and said a quarter of them involved a life-threatening complication of a type of E.coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC).

Authorities gave no fresh figures on Thursday, a public holiday in Germany, but some media reported late on Wednesday that a 17th patient had died.

From Farm to Fork

EU health experts say they have been shocked by the size and severity of the outbreak, which is on a scale never seen before in the region.

Denis Coulombier, head of surveillance and response for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the EU, said studies so far show a strong link between disease symptoms and the consumption of fresh vegetables.

"To have such a high number of severe cases means that probably there was a huge contamination at some junction," he told Reuters in an interview. "That could have been anywhere from the farm to the fork -- in transport, packaging, cleaning, at wholesalers, or retailers -- anywhere along that food chain."

Russia's Onishchenko said it had resorted to a ban because "the situation has not been brought under control in a month."

"The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted him as saying.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegtables from Russia were just 29 million euros ($42 million), EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the EU Health Commission John Dalli would be writing to Moscow "within hours" to tell them the ban was disproportionate.

France, Germany and Poland are the biggest exporters of fruits and vegetables to Russia, an EU spokesman said.

The ECDC says cases of E.coli linked with this outbreak have also been reported in Sweden, where one of the deaths occurred, and in Denmark, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands. Most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently traveled to the country.

EU officials have said three cases of E.coli linked to the German outbreak have also been reported in the United States.

E.coli can be passed from person to person but the ECDC's Coulombier said there was no evidence this was happening in any significant numbers in this outbreak. Health experts are recommending strict hygiene measures such as hand washing and thorough cleaning and cooking of food.

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Russia bans EU vegetables over outbreak

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia infuriated the European Union on Thursday, by banning fresh vegetables from its 27 member states and faulting its health safety system for the death of 17 people from a lethal bacterial strain.

The sanction was immediately denounced as "disproportionate" by a European Commission spokesman who said Brussels would demand an official explanation from Moscow.

The Rospotrebnadzor watchdog said the ban was going into effect immediately and would remain in force until the European Union explained what caused the 17 mysterious deaths -- all but one of them in Germany.

"There is no evidence of infections going down, while the number of those sick with acute intestinal infection caused by enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) has not been taken into sufficient account," the Russian statement said.

Germany said on Wednesday that its initial assumption that the strain had come from organic Spanish cucumbers was wrong -- an admission that prompted the Spanish prime minister to demand financial compensation.

State television said Russia imports about one-fifth of its vegetables from the European Union and most of the rest from China and Turkey.

But the European Commission said the figure still amounted to more than three billion euros ($4.3 billion) in annual trade.

"It's disproportionate," the European Union's health spokesman Frederic Vincent told AFP, arguing that the ban unfairly punished countries where the vegetable crop was unaffected.

"The commission will write to Russian authorities to demand an explanation. This represents between three and four billion euros in European products exported each year," he said.

The Russian consumer watchdog's chief Gennady Onishchenko -- a man known to throw himself in the centre of political and diplomatic disputes -- said the outbreak revealed faults in the common European food safety system.

"This shows that Europe's lauded health legislation -- one which Russia is being urged to adopt -- does not work," Onishchenko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency

"I am far from believing that my colleagues in Germany and other European countries lack professional skills," he said.

"But their hands are tied by an overly-politicised atmosphere."

Onishchenko added "it was obvious" that Spanish cucumbers could not have been the true cause of the problem.

Russia has been quick in the past to ban the import of products that are also produced locally.

It has scuffled with the United States over chicken part shipments and banned wine and other imports from Georgia and Moldova during times of diplomatic tension with those two former Soviet republics.

Critics of Russia's food policies say the bans serve the dual purpose of punishing the country's rivals while at the same time protecting domestic producers.

Russia's western neighbour Belarus said it too was mulling an EU import ban.

"We are carefully following the situation," a source in the ex-Soviet republic's agriculture ministry told the Interfax news agency.

"We have not yet seen our Russia's colleagues' official ban orders," the official said.

View the original article here

Vegetable scare hits Europe, 1st Ld-Writethru

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, Associated Press Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated Press – Fri?Jun?3, 11:57?am?ET

BERLIN – Schools have pulled raw vegetables from menus, piles of cucumbers sit untouched on shop shelves, and farmers say they're losing millions.

As scientists scramble to find the source of an E. coli outbreak linked to raw vegetables that has killed 18 in Europe and sickened nearly 2,000, consumers are swearing off lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes just in case.

"Cook it or don't eat it," Hamburg kidney specialist Rolf Stahl told reporters at a press conference about the epidemic on Friday. "That's my personal recommendation."

Consumers from the northern German city of Hamburg — the epicenter of the outbreak — to Bulgaria, Spain, France and Sweden were worried about which vegetables and fruit they could still eat and what they should avoid.

"We no longer offer cucumbers, people just won't buy them anymore," said Mehmet Tanis, a vegetable vendor at Berlin's busy weekly market in the city's Kreuzberg neighborhood, who says his weekly profit is down euro1,000 ($1,450).

"They're completely scared to get sick — even though we always get our cucumbers from Jordan. We're also selling 80 percent less lettuce, and only half the tomatoes."

Most of those sickened say they ate vegetables beforehand. But without being able to pinpoint the source, German health authorities have issued a broad warning to stay away from all tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.

Hamburg officials initially suspected cucumbers from Spain after three samples tested positive for E. coli, but later tests showed they were infected with a different strain of the bacteria than the one behind the outbreak.

Nevertheless, the jitters have devastated the Spanish produce industry.

In Almeria, one of Spain's main agricultural regions and probably the hardest hit, the head of a farmer's association said the market for exports to the rest of Europe is still virtually dead.

Before the crisis, Almeria exported 20,000 tons of produce a day. Now many farmers are simply destroying their crops — often right in the fields where they grow — because of lack of demand and to avoid the cost of shipping them to special centers that grind unwanted crops for compost or animal feed, said Francisco Vargas, head of the Almeria chapter of the Spanish farm association Asaja.

In Madrid, defiant businessman Javier Zaccagnini said he has made a special point of eating cucumbers even though he's not a big fan, out of solidarity with the local farmers.

"My girlfriend bought some cucumbers and I was delighted to enjoy a fresh salad with her, to make a special effort," said the 56-year-old. "There isn't a problem with Spanish produce. I realized that very early on. I have no intention of changing any of my eating habits."

Italian Maurizio Duchi also brushed aside concerns as he went into a Rome supermarket on his lunch break to pick up chicken and a salad.

"The situation seems to be under control and in any case I really don't like cucumbers," he said.

But elsewhere others were being more cautious.

"I ask where the vegetables come from when I make my procurements now," said Jessica Eng, a vegetable vendor at the Saluhall market in Stockholm. "And I would not buy anything from Germany right now."

In salad-loving Paris, Julie Cutelli, a 31-year-old teacher, said the outbreak had affected her grocery shopping, though it hadn't pushed her to give up fresh greens altogether.

"I'm laying off the cucumbers and the tzaziki and started buying other crunchy vegetables instead, like radishes," said Cutelli. "But I'm not going to stop eating salads, that's for sure."

With farmers across Europe complaining of millions in losses, Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in a telephone conversation late Thursday to push for EU help for those affected.

The current outbreak is considered the third-largest involving E. coli in recent world history, and it is already the deadliest with at least 17 dead in Germany and one in Sweden. Twelve people died in a 1996 Japanese outbreak that reportedly sickened more than 9,000, and seven died in a Canadian outbreak in 2000.

Among the 1,733 people sickened in Germany, 520 suffer from a life-threatening complication that can cause kidney failure.

Nine other European nations have reported a total of 80 people sick from the bacteria, most of whom had recently visited northern Germany, the World Health Organization said.

Russia on Thursday extended a ban on vegetables from Spain and Germany to the entire European Union to try to stop the outbreak spreading east, a move the EU quickly called disproportionate and Italy's farmers denounced as "absurd." No deaths or infections have been reported in Russia.

To calm worried customers, some bistros and restaurants in Berlin started putting up posters explaining to customers they are only offering "safe produce."

Across the country, schools, kindergartens and nursing homes took all raw vegetables off menus until further notice and in the western German city of Hagen, an elementary school was closed Friday after a student fell ill with E. coli.

In Austria, medical experts even went so far as to warn local football fans attending Friday's European football qualifier against Germany in Vienna to take extra precautions to avoid infection.

Michael Kunze, a doctor of social medicine in Vienna told the Austria News Agency that Austrian fans should wash their hands well and consider using disinfectant to avoid any possible transmission of the E. coli bacteria from the Germans saying "it can't be ruled out."

The news about tainted cucumbers in Germany even scared people as far away as Bulgaria where locals hesitated to buy the popular vegetable even when vendors offered proof the produce was from local farmers.

Market prices dropped five- to tenfold and on Friday cucumbers on some open markets in Sofia were traded as cheaply as 10 euro cents per pound.

In Ireland, where government officials dismissed suggestions of a threat from imported vegetables, shoppers remained suspicious.

At one Dublin branch of the German-owned Lidl chain, trays of Spanish iceberg lettuce were discounted two-thirds but attracting few takers.

"I don't feel confident buying anything green and fresh today," said Ann O'Leary, 32, a Dublin homemaker. "We're going to be eating a lot of overcooked meats, a lot of canned food, and a lot of pasta until we're given the all clear."

She skipped the vegetable row of the supermarket entirely, stopping only for two bunches of bananas and a net of oranges. "I figure anything with a strong peel on it is safe to eat. I won't get scurvy at least!"

___

Associated Press writers across Europe contributed to this story.

View the original article here

No proof vegetables behind bacteria outbreak: lab

ROME (AFP) – Scientific tests have failed to support the hypothesis that contaminated vegetables are behind a deadly bacteria outbreak in Europe, the EU's Reference Laboratory for E. coli in Rome said on Friday.

"Alarmism over the consumption of vegetables is not justified... since laboratory analyses do not support the hypothesis that contaminated vegetables were the source of the infection," the laboratory said in a statement.

The laboratory, part of Italy's Higher Institute for Health (ISS), said it would be sufficient to follow basic kitchen hygiene to avoid infection, such as washing your hands after handling food and ensuring knives are clean.

"The only previous detection of a similar strain, although with a different serotype was carried out in ISS laboratories in relation to a small epidemic of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) in France," it said.

HUS, a kidney disease, usually affects children and can be life-threatening.

The laboratory said the strain "cannot be considered mutant... but rather a strain originating from the acquisition of new genes."

The current outbreak has now spread to 12 countries and appears to be stabilising, a senior German doctor said Friday, as the death toll rose to 19.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile defended an earlier false alarm on organic Spanish cucumbers that angered Madrid, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he would not allow Russians to "get poisoned" by EU vegetables.

All but one of the fatalities since the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) poisoning began last month have occurred in Germany. A patient, who died in Sweden, had recently returned from there.

Regional German health authorities have reported more than 2,000 cases of people falling ill with EHEC poisoning, with symptoms including stomach cramps, diarrhoea, fever and vomiting.

View the original article here

Russia bans EU vegetables

Reuters/Moscow

Russia has banned imports of fresh vegetables from the European Union, accusing Brussels of sowing chaos by failing to give sufficient information about a deadly E. coli outbreak.
The European Commission said Moscow’s move was disproportionate. The outbreak has killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill, and food poisoning is spreading from Germany across Europe.
Russia extended a ban on German and Spanish fresh vegetables to cover the European Union because it said Moscow had not been given proper information on the situation despite repeated requests.
The source of the infection is still unclear.
“The kind of things that have been happening in the EU for a whole month do not even happen in African countries,” Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, told Reuters by telephone.
“I would call the action of the EU health regulators and the other European bodies responsible for this disgrace unprofessional and irresponsible,” said Onishchenko.
The European Commission urged Russia to end its ban immediately.
“The European Commission protested to the Russian Federation this afternoon against the Russian ban imposed earlier today on all EU vegetable exports to Russia, and requested the immediate withdrawal of the measure,” the EU executive said in a statement.
European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said earlier that the EU Health Commission John Dalli would write to Moscow.
The ban comes a week before Russia, whose leaders have often accused Europe and the US of trying to force their rules on it, hosts EU leaders at a summit in the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
Russia is under pressure from Europe and other trade partners to announce how it will end protectionist measures, including meat import restrictions, as part of its push to join the World Trade Organisation this year after an 18-year effort.
Shops in Moscow prepared to dump EU vegetables and consumers expressed a mixture of scorn and pride at the ban, while the foreign ministry quipped that local cucumbers were best.
“Every state will protect its market in order not to get these ‘gifts’, these cucumbers,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.
“As for the quality of cucumbers, I have tried many myself, but I think that those from the Moscow region are the best – especially the ones from my own garden,” he said.
High-end Russian grocery store chain Azbuka Vkusa, which sources more than 40% of all its fresh vegetables and fruits from Europe, said that it could replace EU produce with Turkish, Azeri and Russian goods.
Toting a shopping basket filled with grapes and fresh vegetables at a store up the street from the Bolshoi Theatre, Vyacheslav Yegorov called the ban “ridiculous”. “I am not afraid of buying vegetables from any country here... This thing will blow over and be forgotten tomorrow.”
But another shopper, Natalya Kuzmina, said that imported food is more likely to have been treated with chemicals and that the ban would help domestic farmers.
Russian Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik played down speculation that Russia could face shortages, saying that imports of vegetables are low in the summer and that most cucumbers and tomatoes do not come from EU nations.
European Union countries exported 594mn euros ($853mn) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegetables from Russia were just 29mn euros, EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

View the original article here

Austria checks stores for E. coli vegetables

VIENNA – Austrian officials inspected supermarkets on Monday for Spanish vegetables suspected of contamination with a potentially fatal bacteria that has sickened hundreds of Europeans. In Germany, the death toll from the outbreak rose to 11.

Spain, meanwhile, went on the defensive, saying there was no proof that the E. coli outbreak has been caused by Spanish vegetables.

Spain's Secretary of State for European Affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido, said Madrid might take action against those pointing fingers at his southern European nation.

"You can't attribute the origin of this sickness to Spain," Lopez Garrido told reporters in Brussels. "There is no proof and that's why we are going to demand accountability from those who have blamed Spain for this matter."

Austrian authorities sent inspectors to 33 organic supermarkets Monday to make sure Spanish vegetables suspected of contamination have been taken off shelves. The move came after a recall and sales ban of cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants that originated in Spain and were delivered to stores in Austria by German companies.

"If anything is found to be left over, it will be tested and taken off the market," Austrian Health Ministry spokesman Fabian Fusseis said.

While two German tourists have tested positive for enterohaemorrhagic E.coli, also known as EHEC, no so-called homegrown cases have been reported, he added.

In Germany, where the death toll rose to 11 on Monday, officials said even though they know that Spanish cucumbers tainted with EHEC have carried the bacteria, they still have not been able to determine the exact source.

"We have found the so-called EHEC pathogens on cucumbers, but that does not mean that they are responsible for the whole outbreak," Andreas Hensel, president of Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, said on ZDF television.

Spanish Health Minister Leire Pajin, noting that no Spanish cases have been reported, urged Germany to speed up its probe and establish proof of what has caused the outbreak. Germany's allegations "create alarm and affect the producers of a country without any evidence," she said.

In Poland, officials said Monday that a woman has been hospitalized in serious condition after returning from a trip to the northern German city of Hamburg, where at least 467 cases of intestinal infection have been recorded.

On Sunday, authorities said those included 91 cases of the more severe hemolytic uremic syndrome, but the officials noted on Monday that the number of new diarrhea cases was declining. HUS is a rare complication arising from infection associated with the E. coli bacterium.

Czech officials said tests on 120 potentially tainted Spanish cucumbers pulled off shelves on Sunday are expected to be concluded in two days. No illnesses have been reported.

In Italy, meanwhile, the country's paramilitary Carabinieri tainted food squad has been on the lookout since Saturday for any contaminated cucumbers, checking imports from Spain, the Netherlands and other European countries. So far, lab analyses have come back negative, and no cases of food poisoning have been reported.

Still, Italy's agriculture lobby, Coldiretti, urged Italians to support their local growers to avoid imports.

Currently, Italian supermarkets are full of peaches, apricots, cherries and plums from Spain. As for pickles and cucumbers, Italy imported some 8 million kilograms (17 million pounds) from Spain last year.

EU spokesman Frederic Vincent said Sunday that two greenhouses in Spain that were identified as the source of the contaminated cucumbers had ceased activities. The water and soil there are being analyzed to see whether they were the problem, and the results are expected Tuesday or Wednesday, said Vincent.

The EU notified member states Friday of the source of the outbreak, which has affected primarily the Hamburg area of Germany and, to a lesser extent, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, according to Vincent.

____

Karel Janicek in Prague, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Ciaran Giles in Madrid and David Rising in Berlin contributed.

View the original article here

Children eat more veggies if given choice

GRANADA, Spain, June 2 (UPI) -- Allowing children a choice of vegetables results in the children eating as much as 80 percent more veggies, researchers in Spain said.

The researchers at the University of Granada also found the bitterness of calcium -- which is noticeably present in vegetables such as spinach, collard greens, cabbage, onions, chard or broccoli -- can be a factor in why children may not want to eat vegetables.

Paloma Rohlfs Dominguez of the Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Granada, along with Professor Jaime Vila Castelar and other colleagues at the University of Granada and the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, analyzed vegetable consumption in children age 6. The researchers used "provision of choice," in which children were allowed to choose the vegetables they wanted for each meal, as part of the study.

Children who were allowed to choose their vegetables ate almost 1.6 ounces per day, the study said.

The findings are published in the Brain Research Bulletin and is online in Sciencedirect.

View the original article here

Vegetable scare hits Europe

BERLIN – Schools have pulled raw vegetables from menus, piles of cucumbers sit untouched on shop shelves, and farmers say they're losing millions.

As scientists scramble to find the source of an E. coli outbreak linked to raw vegetables that has killed 18 in Europe and sickened nearly 2,000, consumers are swearing off lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes just in case.

"Cook it or don't eat it," Hamburg kidney specialist Rolf Stahl told reporters at a press conference about the epidemic on Friday. "That's my personal recommendation."

Consumers from the northern German city of Hamburg — the epicenter of the outbreak — to Bulgaria, Spain, France and Sweden were worried about which vegetables and fruit they could still eat and what they should avoid.

"We no longer offer cucumbers, people just won't buy them anymore," said Mehmet Tanis, a vegetable vendor at Berlin's busy weekly market in the city's Kreuzberg neighborhood, who says his weekly profit is down euro1,000 ($1,450).

"They're completely scared to get sick — even though we always get our cucumbers from Jordan. We're also selling 80 percent less lettuce, and only half the tomatoes."

Most of those sickened say they ate vegetables beforehand. But without being able to pinpoint the source, German health authorities have issued a broad warning to stay away from all tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.

Hamburg officials initially suspected cucumbers from Spain after three samples tested positive for E. coli, but later tests showed they were infected with a different strain of the bacteria than the one behind the outbreak.

Nevertheless, the jitters have devastated the Spanish produce industry.

In Almeria, one of Spain's main agricultural regions and probably the hardest hit, the head of a farmer's association said the market for exports to the rest of Europe is still virtually dead.

Before the crisis, Almeria exported 20,000 tons of produce a day. Now many farmers are simply destroying their crops — often right in the fields where they grow — because of lack of demand and to avoid the cost of shipping them to special centers that grind unwanted crops for compost or animal feed, said Francisco Vargas, head of the Almeria chapter of the Spanish farm association Asaja.

In Madrid, defiant businessman Javier Zaccagnini said he has made a special point of eating cucumbers even though he's not a big fan, out of solidarity with the local farmers.

"My girlfriend bought some cucumbers and I was delighted to enjoy a fresh salad with her, to make a special effort," said the 56-year-old. "There isn't a problem with Spanish produce. I realized that very early on. I have no intention of changing any of my eating habits."

Italian Maurizio Duchi also brushed aside concerns as he went into a Rome supermarket on his lunch break to pick up chicken and a salad.

"The situation seems to be under control and in any case I really don't like cucumbers," he said.

But elsewhere others were being more cautious.

"I ask where the vegetables come from when I make my procurements now," said Jessica Eng, a vegetable vendor at the Saluhall market in Stockholm. "And I would not buy anything from Germany right now."

In salad-loving Paris, Julie Cutelli, a 31-year-old teacher, said the outbreak had affected her grocery shopping, though it hadn't pushed her to give up fresh greens altogether.

"I'm laying off the cucumbers and the tzaziki and started buying other crunchy vegetables instead, like radishes," said Cutelli. "But I'm not going to stop eating salads, that's for sure."

With farmers across Europe complaining of millions in losses, Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in a telephone conversation late Thursday to push for EU help for those affected.

The current outbreak is considered the third-largest involving E. coli in recent world history, and it is already the deadliest with at least 17 dead in Germany and one in Sweden. Twelve people died in a 1996 Japanese outbreak that reportedly sickened more than 9,000, and seven died in a Canadian outbreak in 2000.

Among the 1,733 people sickened in Germany, 520 suffer from a life-threatening complication that can cause kidney failure.

Nine other European nations have reported a total of 80 people sick from the bacteria, most of whom had recently visited northern Germany, the World Health Organization said.

Russia on Thursday extended a ban on vegetables from Spain and Germany to the entire European Union to try to stop the outbreak spreading east, a move the EU quickly called disproportionate and Italy's farmers denounced as "absurd." No deaths or infections have been reported in Russia.

To calm worried customers, some bistros and restaurants in Berlin started putting up posters explaining to customers they are only offering "safe produce."

Across the country, schools, kindergartens and nursing homes took all raw vegetables off menus until further notice and in the western German city of Hagen, an elementary school was closed Friday after a student fell ill with E. coli.

In Austria, medical experts even went so far as to warn local football fans attending Friday's European football qualifier against Germany in Vienna to take extra precautions to avoid infection.

Michael Kunze, a doctor of social medicine in Vienna told the Austria News Agency that Austrian fans should wash their hands well and consider using disinfectant to avoid any possible transmission of the E. coli bacteria from the Germans saying "it can't be ruled out."

The news about tainted cucumbers in Germany even scared people as far away as Bulgaria where locals hesitated to buy the popular vegetable even when vendors offered proof the produce was from local farmers.

Market prices dropped five- to tenfold and on Friday cucumbers on some open markets in Sofia were traded as cheaply as 10 euro cents per pound.

In Ireland, where government officials dismissed suggestions of a threat from imported vegetables, shoppers remained suspicious.

At one Dublin branch of the German-owned Lidl chain, trays of Spanish iceberg lettuce were discounted two-thirds but attracting few takers.

"I don't feel confident buying anything green and fresh today," said Ann O'Leary, 32, a Dublin homemaker. "We're going to be eating a lot of overcooked meats, a lot of canned food, and a lot of pasta until we're given the all clear."

She skipped the vegetable row of the supermarket entirely, stopping only for two bunches of bananas and a net of oranges. "I figure anything with a strong peel on it is safe to eat. I won't get scurvy at least!"

___

Associated Press writers across Europe contributed to this story.

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Vegetables boost heart health

Medical herbalist Kitty Campion has a daily dose of garlic, ginger and onion for heart health in her nine serves of vegetables a day.

"I have an inch of ginger, peeled and finely chopped, into a stir-fry," says the UK trained practitioner, who ran her own natural health clinics in London and Oxfordshire before coming to Perth last year. She is based at the Perth Natural Medical Clinic and working on her 10th book, The Metaphor of Illness.

"I would also eat at least two cloves of garlic and at least one red onion. Studies have shown garlic prevents blood coagulation and reduces blood viscosity. Ginger at high doses - you're talking about 10g a day - reduces platelet aggregation. Onions exhibit anti-platelet activity, dilate the blood vessels and thin the blood."

Dr Campion has nine serves of vegetables a day because, she says, research shows it's the recommended intake to protect against pancreatic cancer.

Heart Foundation WA chief executive Maurice Swanson recommends a healthy, well-balanced diet for cardiovascular health, including a variety of foods such as fruit, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, oily fish, low-, reduced- or no-fat dairy, plus vegetable and seed oils and nuts.

"Onion and garlic are good foods to eat - but not to excess," he says.

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No proof vegetables behind E. coli outbreak: lab

ROME (AFP) – Scientific checks have failed to support the hypothesis that contaminated vegetables are behind a deadly bacteria outbreak in Europe, the EU's Reference Laboratory for E.coli in Rome said on Friday.

"Alarmism over the consumption of vegetables is not justified... since laboratory analyses do not support the hypothesis that contaminated vegetables were the source of the infection," the laboratory said in a statement.

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Contaminated vegetables kill 16 across Europe

BERLIN --

A massive and unprecedented outbreak of bacterial infections linked to contaminated vegetables claimed two more lives in Europe on Tuesday, driving the death toll to 16. The number of sick rose to more than 1,150 people in at least eight nations.

Nearly 400 people in Germany were battling a severe and potentially fatal version of the infection that attacks the kidneys. A U.S. expert said doctors had never seen so many cases of the condition, hemolytic uremic syndrome, tied to a foodborne illness outbreak before.

Investigators across Europe were frantically trying to determine how many vegetables were contaminated with enterohaemorrhagic E.coli — an unusual, toxic strain of the common E. coli bacterium — and where in the long journey from farm to grocery store the contamination occurred.

The highly politicized mystery over the source of the E. coli contamination deepened in the light of new evidence that two strains of the bacterium may be involved. German officials said they were still looking at Spanish produce but Spain said the discovery was proof its farms were not the source.

E. coli is found in large quantities in the digestive systems of humans, cows and other mammals. It has been responsible for a large number of food contamination outbreaks in a wide variety of countries. In most cases, it causes non-lethal stomach ailments.

But enterohaemorrhagic E.coli, or EHEC, causes more severe symptoms, ranging from bloody diarrhea to the rare hemolytic uremic syndrome. In Germany, at least 373 people have come down with the syndrome, or HUS, in which E. coli infection attacks the kidneys, sometimes causing seizures, strokes and comas.

"The idea of an outbreak of over 300 hemolytic uremic syndrome cases is absolutely extraordinary," said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

"There has not been such an outbreak before that we know of in the history of public health," Tauxe said, adding that the German strain of E. coli has not been seen in the United States.

German officials say that investigations including interviews with patients have shown people were likely infected by eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce, and they are warning consumers to avoid those vegetables.

European Union officials say Germany has identified cucumbers from the Spanish regions of Almeria and Malaga as possible sources of contamination. They say a third suspect batch, originating either in the Netherlands or in Denmark and sold in Germany, was also under investigation.

They noted that imported cucumbers could have been contaminated at any point on the long route to retail customers. Denmark said that no traces of EHEC bacteria were found in tests of vegetables conducted there over the weekend. Exports of Dutch cucumbers to Germany were halted but authorities said tests of a grower and a warehouse found no EHEC bacteria there either.

Authorities in Hamburg said last week that they had detected EHEC on four cucumbers, three of them imported from Spain and the fourth of unclear origin, which were on sale in a market in the city.

On Tuesday, however, officials said they had found a slightly different type of EHEC on the cucumbers than the type detected in the feces of sick people in Germany, though reiterated that even though that meant those vegetables did not cause the outbreak, they still posed a health risk.

Spain's agriculture minister, Rosa Aguilar, seized on it as evidence that "our cucumbers are not responsible for the situation."

Spain exports most of its produce to other countries in Europe.

The vast majority of EHEC infections have affected either Germans or people who recently traveled to Germany. Germany's top health said 796 people in the country have been hit by less serious infection with the EHEC bacteria. The northern city of Hamburg and surrounding areas have been worst affected.

Other cases have been reported in Denmark, France, the Czech Republic, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland but the World Health Organization said it only had confirmation of the German cases and another six cases in France.

There is frequently a lag between reports of disease outbreaks by national authorities and confirmation by the WHO.

German regional officials have said they are seeing a sharp drop in the number of new cases.

Officials in the northwestern city of Paderborn said, however, that an 87-year-old who suffered from a variety of ailments including recent EHEC infection had died early Tuesday.

In Sweden, hospital medical chief Jerker Isacson said that the Swedish woman who died had been ill for a few days before she arrived at the hospital on Sunday and died early Tuesday.

"She developed serious complications, among other things on the kidneys," he said.

The Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control on Monday said 41 Swedes have been infected with EHEC so far, including 15 with HUS.

Britt Akerlind, spokeswoman at the institute, said it is unclear why so many Swedes had been infected, but said it could be that efficient reporting mechanism in the Nordic country means more cases have been discovered here.

In the meantime, Russia's chief sanitary agency on Monday banned the imports of cucumbers, tomatoes and fresh salad from Spain and Germany pending further notice.

It said that it may even ban the imports of fresh vegetables from all European Union member states due to the lack of information about the source of infection.

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It's Official! Make Half Your Plate Fruits & Vegetables

New USDA food icon supports Dietary Guidelines

HOCKESSIN, Del., June 2, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a replacement for its current food pyramid in support of dietary recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 to make half your plate fruits and vegetables. ?The new plate icon is sectioned off to show fruits and vegetables as half of the plate, making the recommendation easy to understand.

"This science-based government recommendation to make half your plate fruits and vegetables is a significant and positive step in the battle to fight obesity and related health issues in America. ?The plate icon is a simple, memorable way to show Americans the proportion of fruits and vegetables they should be eating at every meal occasion," says Dr. Elizabeth Pivonka, president and CEO of Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH), the nonprofit entity in partnership with CDC behind the Fruits & Veggies—More MattersR national public health initiative. ?"Ever since the 2005 Dietary Guidelines increased the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables to consume daily, which was also the impetus to 'rebrand' 5 A Day to Fruits & Veggies—More Matters, making half your plate fruits and vegetables has been one of the supporting messages of our Fruits & Veggies—More Matters initiative since it's 2007 launch."

The consumer-friendly website, www.FruitsandVeggiesMoreMatters.org, offers tips, recipes, and meal planning advice geared towards meeting the goal of making half your plate fruits and vegetables easily achievable. ?While on the www.FruitsandVeggiesMoreMatters.org site, consumers can take the America's More Matters Pledge: Fruits & Veggies . . . Today and Every Day! The America's More Matters Pledge encourages everyone to make fruits and vegetables half of daily meals and snacks or to simply increase the amount eaten each day because more does matter. The tools needed to follow through with the half-the-plate pledge are also available on the www.FruitsandVeggiesMoreMatters.org website. ?The site includes a recipe database with over 1,000 recipes, many that can be made in 30 minutes or less, and a Video Center loaded with informational and entertaining short clips that offer fruit and veggie selection and storage and preparation advice and techniques.

Adding more fruits and vegetables to meals and snacks is fun and easy with so many available flavors and ?varieties of fresh, frozen, canned, dried, or 100 percent juice. ?Increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables eaten everyday, or filling half the plate with fruits and veggies at both meals and snacks can make a big difference in your health and energy level because more does matter. Pivonka says that eating fruits and vegetables is a sound investment in long-term health, and a very inexpensive part of a healthy lifestyle.

Follow Fruits & Veggies—More Matters on Facebook or Twitter to get the latest news on America's More Matters Pledge: Fruits & Veggies . . . Today and Every Day!, Fruits & Veggies—More Matters, and Half Your Plate.

About Produce for Better Health Foundation

Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) fruit and vegetable education foundation.? Since 1991, PBH has worked to motivate people to eat more fruits and vegetables to improve public health. ?PBH achieves success through industry and government collaboration, first with the 5 A Day program and now with the Fruits & Veggies-More Matters public health initiative.? Fruits & Veggies-More Matters is the nation's largest public-private, fruit and vegetable nutrition education initiative with Fruit and Vegetable Nutrition Coordinators in each state, territory and the military. To learn more, visit www.PBHFoundation.org and www.FruitsandVeggiesMoreMatters.org. Follow Fruits & Veggies-More Matters on Facebook or Twitter.

PBH is also a member and co-chair with Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) of the National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance (NFVA), consisting of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and industry working to collaboratively and synergistically achieve increased nationwide access and demand for all forms of fruits and vegetables for improved public health. ?To learn more, visit www.NFVA.org.

SOURCE Fruits & Veggies - More Matters

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Children eat more vegetables when allowed to choose

 

This release is available in French and Spanish.

A gesture as simple as allowing children to freely choose the vegetables they want to eat helps to increase the consumption of these foods in children, as University of Granada has found. Moreover, his work suggests that the bitter taste of calcium, present in vegetables such as spinach, collard greens, cabbage, onions, chard or broccoli, can be a factor negatively influencing children's consumption of vegetables.

To carry out this experimental study, the authors analyzed the main factors determining vegetable consumption in children under 6 years by evaluating the effectiveness of a strategy called "Provision of choice". In this strategy children were allowed to choose the vegetables they wanted to take in each meal.

Provision of choice

Researchers worked with 150 children at four public schools in Granada, Spain, managed by the Foundation Granada Educa. Children were allowed to choose the vegetables they wanted to eat for lunch. Similarly, they were given a tool known as "Provision of Choice", which was found to increase consumption of vegetables by up to 80 percent. They further noted that children who were allowed to choose ingested 20 grams more, representing an average of 40 grams per day between lunch and dinner. Given that the ration of vegetables served was 150 grams, "it is a very important quantity", the authors of the paper state.

The main autor of this pioneer research in Spain is Paloma Rohlfs Dom?nguez, at the Institute for Neuroscience of the University of Granada; the paper was conducted by professor Jaime Vila Castelar, at the department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment. Other researchers from the University of Granada, and of the University of Wageningen, Netherlands also participated in this research study.

This work also revealed that children's sensitivity to the bitterness of glucosinolate ?present in vegetables? caused by the chemical component 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP), may be one of the reasons why many children reject vegetables. Similarly, the bitter taste of calcium also affects negatively.

The results obtained in this study were partially published in the international journal Brain Research Bulletin, and are available online in Sciencedirect.

Contact: Paloma Rohlfs Dom?nguez. Institute of Neurosciences / department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment, University of Granada. Cell phone: +34 958 240 667. E-mail address: palomaroh@ugr.es

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

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Putin: Russia's ban on EU vegetables will stand

On Friday June 3, 2011, 10:48 am EDT

MOSCOW (AP) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has defended Russia's ban on imports of vegetables from all of the European Union following an outbreak of E. coli infection, saying the government must protect the population.

The EU has said the Russian ban, introduced after the outbreak of the infection, is disproportionate.

Putin on Friday rejected the EU claim, saying that authorities in Russia can't risk population's health by allowing EU vegetable imports at a time when the authorities in countries affected have failed to determine the cause of the outbreak, that has so far killed 18 people.

Russia had initially banned vegetables imports from Germany and Spain, and on Thursday extended the ban to the entire EU.

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Russia bans German, Spanish vegetables

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Monday banned the import of all vegetables from Germany and Spain and warned the sanction could soon be applied to the rest of Europe because of the deadly E. coli bacteria scare.

The country's consumer consumer protection watchdog said in a statement that the ban covered "raw vegetables" including tomatoes, cucumbers and salad produced in Germany and Spain.

"This measure stems from the outbreak in Germany of the acute intestinal infection caused by Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC)," the agency statement statement said.

EHEC can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes bloody diarrhoea and serious liver damage and which can result in death.

German officials suspect the deadly strain, which has already killed 12 people, may have come from organic cucumbers imported from Spain.

Russia has been quick on past occasions to ban the import of products produced locally for ostensibly health-related reasons -- moves that have seen critics accuse the authorities of unfairly helping local producers.

The consumer protection agency said the measure could soon be expanded to include all European Union countries if Russia failed to receives a sufficient explanation as to how the fatal disease was being spread.

"Moreover, in the coming hours, a decision may be taken to ban the import to or sale in Russia of vegetables produced in all EU countries," the Russian statement said.

The agency chief's Gennady Onishchenko urged Russians to eat only locally-grown greens, adding that all vegetables already imported from Germany and Spain would be seized.

"We are calling on the population not to purchase fresh vegetables from Germany and Spain," Interfax quoted Onishchenko as saying. "Let them purchase domestic products."

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Russia Bans EU Vegetables Due to E.coli Outbreak

Russia banned imports of raw vegetables from the European Union on Thursday because of a deadly E.coli outbreak centered in Germany, a move branded "disproportionate" by Brussels.

Grady Coppell | Digital Vision | Getty Images

German health officials said the infections, which have killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill in eight European countries, could go on for months and their precise source may never be pinned down.

Russia had already banned imports of vegetables from Germany and Spain due to the outbreak, which German officials originally blamed on contaminated cucumbers imported from Spain before backtracking and apologising to Madrid.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, said the deaths caused by the outbreak "demonstrate that the much-praised European sanitary legislation, which Russia is being urged to adopt, does not work," Interfax news agency reported.

The new ban would take effect on Thursday morning, he said, prompting an immediate protest from the European Union.

Spain is threatening legal action over the crisis. It wants compensation for its farmers, who say lost sales are costing them 200 million euros ($287 million) a week and could put 70,000 people out of work.

The European Commission has said it is looking at what it could do about the impact on producers.

Reinhard Burger, head of the German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), admitted the precise source of the disease outbreak may never be found.

"There still is no indication of a definable source," Burger told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, adding it was too early to say that a plateau of new cases had been reached.

The RKI reported 365 new E.coli cases on Wednesday and said a quarter of them involved a life-threatening complication of a type of E.coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC).

Authorities gave no fresh figures on Thursday, a public holiday in Germany, but some media reported late on Wednesday that a 17th patient had died.

From Farm to Fork

EU health experts say they have been shocked by the size and severity of the outbreak, which is on a scale never seen before in the region.

Denis Coulombier, head of surveillance and response for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the EU, said studies so far show a strong link between disease symptoms and the consumption of fresh vegetables.

"To have such a high number of severe cases means that probably there was a huge contamination at some junction," he told Reuters in an interview. "That could have been anywhere from the farm to the fork -- in transport, packaging, cleaning, at wholesalers, or retailers -- anywhere along that food chain."

Russia's Onishchenko said it had resorted to a ban because "the situation has not been brought under control in a month."

"The sources of the infection and factors in its spread have not been established," state-run RIA quoted him as saying.

European Union countries exported 594 million euros ($853 million) worth of vegetables to Russia last year while EU imports of vegtables from Russia were just 29 million euros ($42 million), EU data show. It was not clear what proportion of that was raw.

European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the EU Health Commission John Dalli would be writing to Moscow "within hours" to tell them the ban was disproportionate.

France, Germany and Poland are the biggest exporters of fruits and vegetables to Russia, an EU spokesman said.

The ECDC says cases of E.coli linked with this outbreak have also been reported in Sweden, where one of the deaths occurred, and in Denmark, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands. Most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently traveled to the country.

EU officials have said three cases of E.coli linked to the German outbreak have also been reported in the United States.

E.coli can be passed from person to person but the ECDC's Coulombier said there was no evidence this was happening in any significant numbers in this outbreak. Health experts are recommending strict hygiene measures such as hand washing and thorough cleaning and cooking of food.

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E. coli scare over raw vegetables spreads across Europe

E. coli

at a market Friday in Madrid. Many people in Europe are swearing off lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes amid the E. coli outbreak, even though the source hasn't been determined. (Denis Doyle, Getty Images)

BERLIN — Schools have pulled raw vegetables from menus, piles of cucumbers sit untouched on shop shelves, and farmers say they are losing millions.

As scientists scramble to find the source of an E. coli outbreak linked to raw vegetables that has killed 18 in Europe and sickened nearly 2,000, consumers are swearing off lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes just in case.

"Cook it or don't eat it," Hamburg kidney specialist Rolf Stahl told reporters at a news conference about the epidemic Friday. "That's my personal recommendation."

Consumers from the northern German city of Hamburg — the epicenter of the outbreak — to Bulgaria, Spain, France and Sweden were worried about which vegetables and fruit they could still eat and what they should avoid.

"We no longer offer cucumbers; people just won't buy them anymore," said Mehmet Tanis, a vegetable vendor at Berlin's busy weekly market in the city's Kreuzberg neighborhood, who says his weekly profit is down $1,450.

"They're completely scared to get sick, even though we always get our cucumbers from Jordan," he said. "We're also selling 80 percent less lettuce and only half the tomatoes."

Most of those sickened say they ate vegetables beforehand. But without being able to pinpoint the source, German health authorities have issued a broad warning to stay away from all tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.

Hamburg officials initially suspected cucumbers from Spain after three samples tested positive for E. coli, but later tests showed they were infected with a different strain of the bacteria than the one behind the outbreak.

Nevertheless, the jitters have devastated the Spanish produce industry.

In Almeria, one of Spain's main agricultural regions and probably the hardest hit, the head of a farmers association said the market for exports to the rest of Europe is still virtually dead.

Before the crisis, Almeria exported 20,000 tons of produce a day. Now many farmers are simply destroying their crops.

The current outbreak is considered the third-largest involving E. coli in recent world history, and it is already the deadliest.

To calm worried customers, some bistros and restaurants in Berlin started putting up posters explaining to customers they are offering only "safe produce."

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