Smoothy Slim
Smoothy Slim
Photo: Karolina Grabowska
And at the end of 2010, a major outbreak of salmonella hit Jimmy John's home state of Illinois, sickening 140 people. Quickly, it became clear the sprouts were the problem—and the company immediately responded by dropping alfalfa sprouts from its menu.
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Learn More »Today in Tedium: As someone who just turned 40 this year, I’m of a certain old (possibly even geriatric) Millennial era where I’m old enough to have seen things but young enough that most of those things are still around. One example of such a thing: Jimmy John’s. A popular sandwich chain noted for its fast delivery times, this franchise came into my life when I was a midwesterner in college and its menus became ubiquitous sights in dorm room nightstands all throughout the residential halls. It still exists, and is still basically the same … except for one very specific thing: the sprouts. As this popular sandwich chain has evolved from a college-town curiosity into a national powerhouse that made its founder a billionaire, the sprouts didn’t make the trip unscathed. And there’s a reason for that. Today’s Tedium discusses how sprouts became the forbidden fruit of Jimmy John’s. — Ernie @ Tedium Today’s GIF is from a video showing how clover sprouts are grown; this process is also a great way to grow bacteria. Some alfalfa sprouts on display. (via PxFuel) Why sprouts used to be a really attractive ingredient for sandwich shops When allowed to grow fully, the alfalfa sprout turns into a flowering plant, one that is particularly important for foraging—it can be used as hay, stored as animal feed, and given to livestock whenever necessary. It’s particularly useful as a crop that helps that livestock properly produce fertilizer, and it can grow during periods even when other plants are struggling. But when acquired for the purpose of being a sandwich vegetable, alfalfa adds a little bit of crunch but not a lot of calories. A cup of sprouts is just 8 calories, an amount that for most people will be barely noticeable. But it feels like a lot more. In a way, it’s kind of like you’re eating the basic elements of nutrients. And that has given it a reputation as a superfood. Doug Evans, a nutritionist best known for founding the infamous startup Juicero, wrote an entire book about sprouts last year in which he made a very passionate case for them as the center of a diet. “For all intents and purposes, if you ate sprouts for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack, you would barely get eight hundred calories into your system (and feel full) but the equivalent of three thousand to four thousand calories of nutrition relative to other foods,” he wrote. Now, I’m not going to claim that Jimmy John’s, or any other sandwich chain, decided to get into sprouts in an effort to sell you a superfood. But I have to imagine a guy who was developing a sandwich shop on the tightest of margins, with a limited menu, probably thought that adding sprouts to his sandwiches was a good idea. (Jimmy John Liautaud famously developed his business after being given a modest loan from his father for a hot dog stand, but switched to sandwiches because he didn’t have the money for a hot dog stand. The bet worked out; according to Forbes, he bought out his father after year two.) It stood out, it was an interesting texture, and it made the sandwiches more filling. A Jimmy John’s sandwich with sprouts on it. The chain, and its customers, infamously found the sprouts hard to quit. (littledebbie11/Flickr) The challenges of creating sprouts that don’t make people sick Sprouts are interesting-looking, they’re cheap, and they add texture. But sprouts are extremely finicky, and a big part of the reason for this is that the very thing that helps them grow is the exact same thing that can foster a bacteria outbreak. As Jane Hart of the Michigan State University Extension program (go Spartans!) wrote for Food Safety News in 2017: Any produce that is eaten raw or only lightly cooked carries with it a risk of foodborne illness. Sprouts especially seem to be vulnerable because they need warmth and humidity to sprout, which is exactly what bacteria like salmonella and E. coli need to grow. With enough time in the temperature “danger zone”—40 degrees to 140 degrees Fahrenheit—that the seeds need to sprout, they can become a petri dish of bacteria. You can’t avoid diseases created from sprouts by simply washing the surface, as you can with many foods. Sprouts are young, and since they’re growing at the same time as the bacteria, it’s often the case that they end up directly inside the sprout, where they can’t be washed out. (Irradiation is an effective option, but it’s worth keeping in mind that we have folks who drink raw milk because it’s more real, despite the fact that we’ve known pasteurization improves milk safety for more than a century.) Mike Doyle, who spent years leading the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia before retiring in 2017, spent decades researching E. coli, one of the primary health risks created by contaminated produce. He recommends against pre-cut produce, and says it’s safer to cook it, but that obviously isn’t easy when produce is generally served raw. (Hans/Pixabay) But Doyle has special concerns about sprouts. In an interview with his former university, Doyle referred to raw sprouts as one of the most hazardous types of foods. “The problem is contaminated seeds that are placed in warm water where the sprouts grow. But the conditions are ideal for the bacteria to grow, too,” Doyle said. “Often, only a few seeds are contaminated, so you can’t simply test a few to see if there is a contamination.” Now, take something that’s already hard to sanitize and add the challenges of consistency created by the franchise-based food system, and you have a recipe for disaster.
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Learn More »17+ The number of states where Jimmy John’s restaurants saw outbreaks related to foodborne pathogens between 2013 and 2020, according to an FDA complaint. In nearly every case, the primary cause of the outbreaks was the restaurant’s use of sprouts (although cucumbers were also mentioned as a potential source).
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