Well they've got a couple things going for them— they're sealed so there's very little chance of cross-contamination in transit or storage, and since it's a ready-to-eat food item rather than a raw ingredient, at least the more reputable companies probably need a pretty solid HACCP plan (short for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points— a formal for safety risk analysis and their mitigation procedures), which means at least someone is paying attention. But that's not a guarantee of course, as we've seen from McDonald's current sliced onion debacle, or Boar's
Head's recent listeria recall that lead them to discontinue liver wurst and shut down their huge plant in Virginia. Either way, it's probably safer than store-cut stuff, but there are a lot of factors.
The big problems I've seen with greens all came from field contamination that couldn't be washed off, but that could also be because other types of contamination don't have a single source point and therefore don't trigger a recall/definable outbreak/news coverage.
And when it comes down to it, these are natural organisms that don't come from industrial food production, and will always be somewhat of a risk as long as we eat natural foods. Botulism spores naturally occur more frequently in parts of the western US in places that grow a lot of garlic and onions, which is why we need to refrigerate garlic oil and such— industrial food production is excellent at killing botulism and cases of poisoning come from improperly prepared home canned goods, because doing it 80% right kills everything else, and you could go 3 generations using that recipe before getting over contaminated with botulism, and then everyone at dinner that night dies. Eating industrial canned food exclusively could eliminate most risk of pathogens altogether, but then there's other risks like chemical leeching in many products, nutritional considerations, other contamination (normally a negligible risk, but would it be if you only ate industrial food?) and who really wants to do that, anyway.
But in the US, no for we sell is as risky as raw chicken. Not by a long shot. It's really bizarre that the FDA is so upright that they won't allow soft raw milk cheeses to be sold, but the USDA still, I believe, doesn't legally classify the deadly Salmonella Heidelberg to be an adulterant, as they do e. Coli OH157. Not sure if it's outdated, but when I was in culinary school some time ago, 1 in 4 chickens had enough Salmonella or campylobacter to make a healthy adult sick.
The most impactful things it seems to me home cooks can do to reduce their risks are a) don't to anything else while cutting raw meat, and immediately wash everything that touches it as soon as you're done, b) invest in an instant read thermometer if you cook meat that has a lot of surface area exposure to equipment (e.g. ground meat, sausage, cube steak), c) don't keep cut melons or bean sprouts for more than a few days, d) keep all uncooked meat in the bottom of your fridge below everything else.
There are other things that are risky that people don't realize— cooked room temperature rice, raw flour, room temperature brewed tea, etc etc etc— but they're less frequently problematic. It's a risk/reward just like anything else. A tea shop in Boston made a ton of people sick not refrigerating it's iced tea some years ago, but it didn't kill anyone, and lots of people have made sun tea without getting sick. People WAY overestimate the risk of eating raw eggs, but something like 1 in 10k eggs could do it.
> It's really bizarre that the FDA is so upright that they won't allow soft raw milk cheeses to be sold
I'm in the UK and didn't realise that. We easily buy raw milk cheeses here, but they do carry a warning about people with compromised immune systems and pregnant women.
> There are other things that are risky that people don't realize— cooked room temperature rice, raw flour, room temperature brewed tea
I was aware of the issues with pre-cooked rice and how reheating it is unlikely to make it safe. Raw flour is a new one for me - I would assume that it being dried would kill off most nasties.
However, room temperature brewed tea is incredibly dangerous here in the UK as you're likely to get lynched if you serve that to someone as a nice cuppa. Otherwise, I'd guess that it's the sugar content that gives the bacteria something to munch - it's why kombucha can be dangerous if not brewed carefully though that's more a case of getting the desirable bacteria to out-compete the nasty ones.
The danger in the US involves general poor tea handling with iced tea. Sun Tea involves leaving water and tea bags in the sun for a long while to do kind of a cold brew. Many places (shitty donut shops, greasy spoon diners, etc) make iced tea by stuffing the filter basket on their coffee pots with tea bags, often not getting the tea up to a safe temperature to kill pathogens. It's often then let at room temperature until it's served. It doesn't need sugar in it to be a problem— heck, legionnaires disease grows in closed water circulation systems. It's not common, but in the past decade-and-a-half, there have been a few outbreaks in the US. Also, studies have shown that the containers for sliced lemons in restaurant service stations are frequently teeming with fecal coliform bacteria. If they toss lemons in there to cover up the disgusting residual old coffee flavor, even better.
Heathens over here.
So properly made kombucha wouldn't be risky, but as you noted, it isn't always properly made. You can do most culinary things wrong enough to get you sick if you really put your heart into it.
I recall reading many years ago when I was making some kombucha that one of the problems was using a ceramic container that could leach lead into the brew - presumably related to the acidity of it.
Nowadays, I like to make kefir as that seems like the easiest fermentation - milk and kefir grains in a covered glass jar (not airtight) and leave for a day. Temperature isn't critical and there's no sterilisation needed.
Yeah I avoid porous things in general for that sort of work, but I remember hearing that the lower-end of Mexican ceramic crocks are particularly bad. I see a lot of lead recalls for Chinese products but it could just be because there are so many products coming out of China. When I'm doing any yoghurt type thing, I use my instant pot. Works like a charm.
The big problems I've seen with greens all came from field contamination that couldn't be washed off, but that could also be because other types of contamination don't have a single source point and therefore don't trigger a recall/definable outbreak/news coverage.
And when it comes down to it, these are natural organisms that don't come from industrial food production, and will always be somewhat of a risk as long as we eat natural foods. Botulism spores naturally occur more frequently in parts of the western US in places that grow a lot of garlic and onions, which is why we need to refrigerate garlic oil and such— industrial food production is excellent at killing botulism and cases of poisoning come from improperly prepared home canned goods, because doing it 80% right kills everything else, and you could go 3 generations using that recipe before getting over contaminated with botulism, and then everyone at dinner that night dies. Eating industrial canned food exclusively could eliminate most risk of pathogens altogether, but then there's other risks like chemical leeching in many products, nutritional considerations, other contamination (normally a negligible risk, but would it be if you only ate industrial food?) and who really wants to do that, anyway.
But in the US, no for we sell is as risky as raw chicken. Not by a long shot. It's really bizarre that the FDA is so upright that they won't allow soft raw milk cheeses to be sold, but the USDA still, I believe, doesn't legally classify the deadly Salmonella Heidelberg to be an adulterant, as they do e. Coli OH157. Not sure if it's outdated, but when I was in culinary school some time ago, 1 in 4 chickens had enough Salmonella or campylobacter to make a healthy adult sick.
The most impactful things it seems to me home cooks can do to reduce their risks are a) don't to anything else while cutting raw meat, and immediately wash everything that touches it as soon as you're done, b) invest in an instant read thermometer if you cook meat that has a lot of surface area exposure to equipment (e.g. ground meat, sausage, cube steak), c) don't keep cut melons or bean sprouts for more than a few days, d) keep all uncooked meat in the bottom of your fridge below everything else.
There are other things that are risky that people don't realize— cooked room temperature rice, raw flour, room temperature brewed tea, etc etc etc— but they're less frequently problematic. It's a risk/reward just like anything else. A tea shop in Boston made a ton of people sick not refrigerating it's iced tea some years ago, but it didn't kill anyone, and lots of people have made sun tea without getting sick. People WAY overestimate the risk of eating raw eggs, but something like 1 in 10k eggs could do it.