Health officials are warning consumers to stop eating romaine lettuce until they can accurately determine the cause of an outbreak of E. coli infections across the country.

So far, 58 illnesses have been reported throughout the U.S. and Canada, one person has even died. Obviously, this is a serious matter.

The outbreaks in Canada have been identified as being caused by romaine lettuce, and according to NBC News;

In the United States, state and local public health officials are interviewing sick people to determine what they ate in the week before their illness started. CDC is still collecting information to determine whether there is a food item in common among sick people, including leafy greens and romaine

NBC News also reports that James Roger, food safety director at Consumer Reports, says:

Even though we can’t say with 100 percent certainty that romaine lettuce is the cause of the E. coli outbreak in the U.S., a greater degree of caution is appropriate given that romaine lettuce is almost always consumed raw

Basically, there is still not enough solid information to warrant an official romaine lettuce recall, but it's probably in our best interest to avoid eating it for the time being.

At least now we can blame the failure of our new year's weight loss resolution on lettuce. Eating pizza and chocolate is always safe.

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