A press release from the Food Micro 2008 conference in Aberdeen says that research being presented tomorrow will describe how Salmonella use flagella to attach themselves to produce.

"The new research, led by Professor Gadi Frankel from Imperial College London and carried out with Dr Rob Shaw and colleagues at the University of Birmingham, has uncovered the mechanism used by one particular form of Salmonella called Salmonella enterica serovar Senftenberg, to infect salad leaves, causing a health risk to people who eat them. …

"Professor Frankel and his colleagues at the University of Birmingham found that Salmonella enterica serovar Senftenberg bacteria have a secondary use for their flagella – the long stringy ‘propellers’ they use to move around. The flagella flatten out beneath the bacteria and cling onto salad leaves and vegetables like long thin fingers. To test this observation the scientists genetically engineered salmonella without flagella in the lab and found that they could not attach themselves to the leaves, and the salad remained uncontaminated."

Professor Frankel was further quoted as saying, "In their efforts to eat healthily, people are eating more salad products, choosing to buy organic brands, and preferring the ease of ‘pre-washed’ bagged salads from supermarkets, then ever before. All of these factors, together with the globalisation of the food market, mean that cases of Salmonella and E. coli poisoning caused by salads are likely to rise in the future. This is why it’s important to get a head start with understanding how contamination occurs now.”

Maybe a mouse used its tail to allow its head to get into a bag of greens served in Malta, packed in the Netherlands and imported from Belgium. The supplier was fired.

No worries for Shawn Dell Joyce, a sustainable artist and activist living in a green home in New York’s Mid-Hudson region, who writes that, "when you start asking questions, you begin to see the beauty of eating locally."

Joyce says that local produce is usually grown and harvested within 24 hours of being sold and that local producers tend to be more careful because it is often their own families, friends and neighbors who will eat the produce.

Maybe the Salmonella in that area don’t have flagella.