Spinach
(Image: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

Bags of mixed lettuce and other selected salads have been the subject of a national recall after more than 130 people suffered “hallucinations, delirium, rapid heartbeat and blurred vision” after eating contaminated greens.

Almost 90 people in NSW have reported symptoms, including more than 30 who needed medical attention. In Victoria, at least 20 people have presented to emergency departments, and in Queensland the Poisons Information Centre has received 26 calls. Over the weekend, a child was hospitalised in Brisbane.

The original culprit was Riviera Farms brand baby spinach, but Vic Health, NSW Health, ACT Health and Queensland Health have since issued statements warning against consumption of a swathe of fresh packaged supermarket products believed to be contaminated with a toxic weed.

“We’ve got a centralised food chain in Australia so a contaminated product can very quickly enter a lot of different cities and supermarkets across the country,” said Kate Howell, a microbiologist associate professor at the University of Melbourne.

“But spinach has a pretty short shelf life. It’s not like the strawberry saga where it could have been cased in someone’s freezer for a year. Things will go rotten before they effect more people.”

Food Standards Australia New Zealand have moved quickly to recall the product — and others — sold in Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and Costco supermarkets. Consumers are being urged to bin them.

The public has been advised to be vigilant and monitor for symptoms. If exposed, Martyn Kirk, an epidemiology professor from the Australian National University’s College of Health and Medicine, said people can expect the time between eating and illness to be quite short: “Normally with infectious agents, it can be some time — days — before you’re sick, but with toxins it’s normally hours.”

Health authorities are yet to put a name to the toxin. It’s also inconclusive how the greens were contaminated in the first place.

Both Kirk and Howell said the industry runs a very tight ship when cultivating fresh produce and were surprised that any form of non-spinach managed to slip through the cracks.

“The cultivation of spinach is very precisely regulated from a microbiome perspective,” said Howell. “It’s a monoculture so it’s surprising that it was contaminated.” She added that automation could be to blame.

A lot of fresh leafy greens are no longer harvested by hand so Howell said it was possible the toxic weed simply fooled the system — a spinach con artist that landed itself in salad bags and is now on national tour.