Eat Your Spinach

On hearing that bags of spinach are being recalled because of e-coli outbreak tied to eating your spinach (which has so far resulted in one death), I began thinking about how tough it must be to be a spinach marketer, even on a good day. Here they were, thinking they were doing the world a world of good, and now this.

Despite all that help from Popeye, they've certainly had their challenges to overcome in getting people to eat their spinach. But they're good marketers: the ubiquity of spinach salad on the restaurant menu is certainly testimony to their genius in getting people who hate cooked spinach (I'm one of them) to eat it raw. (Throwing bacon on spinach certainly helped.) So I was wondering how spinach marketers are reacting to yesterday's death-by-spinach news.

As it turns out, a while back the National Spinach Association expanded its mission and is now the Leafy Greens Council, dedicated not just to spinach, but to all the cruciferous veggies (think every vegetable you hated as a kid, plus lettuce, and you're there). They even came up with a set of trading cards (the Cruciferous Crusaders) to help kids make more mature eating decisions. ("No, thanks. I don't want a Happy Meal. I'd rather eat kale.")

Alas, the Leafy Greens Council appears to be no more (either that, or they shut their web site down for the duration). So I don't know what they're thinking today. If the Leafy Greens Council were still around, I'd say they'd be counting their blessings that they could still get out there with Brussel sprouts and turnips. But it they're out there on their own, all I can do is wish them good luck.