Cooks planning to use romaine lettuce in their Thanksgiving dinner salads might want to consider a different leafy green since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Center for Disease Control are investigating a nationwide outbreak of E. coli linked to the consumption of the lettuce.

The Alaska Departments of Health and Social Services and Environmental Conservation issued a joint press release late Tuesday afternoon recommending all restaurants, groceries and other romaine retailers discard the lettuce. Although there is no romaine recall, Howsers IGA, Olerud’s Market Center and Mountain Market pulled the lettuce from their shelves, according to staff from the companies.

“We’ve heard word from some of the bigger produce suppliers that they were aware of this before we were,” said DEC program manager Lorinda Lhotka. “There might be some recalls that start happening, but right now there is no specific recall.”

Mountain Market co-owner Mike Borcik said food suppliers typically send recall notices out when they know their products are compromised. The CDC and FDA are unsure where the E. coli originated from, and have issued the nation-wide warning.

“Because details about specific romaine lettuce distributors or producers are not yet known, the CDC and FDA recommend that people should not consume any romaine lettuce until further information can be obtained,” the press release says. “This includes whole-head romaine, precut lettuce, hearts of romaine in bags and mixed salads that contain romaine.”

Borcik said they’ve kept their romaine in a cooler and will wait to hear if the FDA and CDC determine the source of the outbreak. “We’ll check to see if we have some of the affected stock or not. It happens from time to time,” Borcik said. “If it gets cleared well put it back out. If not, we’ll destroy it.”

The CDC is also recommending that individuals dispose of any romaine they may have recently purchased.

Leigh Horner said she nearly bought a head of romaine a few days ago, but luckily chose not to. “I thought about buying some, but it looked old and tired so I chose not to buy any,” Horner said. The CDC has identified 32 cases of E. coli infection in 11 states since early October and 13 people have been hospitalized, according to the CDC. No cases have been detected in Alaska.

The most recent illness onset was Oct. 31, according to the FDA.

The average interval between when a person becomes ill and when the illness is reported to CDC is 20 days for the current outbreak.

E. coli cases have been reported in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin.

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