The Lettuce and the Folks Who Regulate It Are Trying to Kill Us

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This year, a health scare in my family finally scared me straight — I needed to eat more vegetables.

Watching my loved one fall ill, then nursing them back to health, told me I needed to take my future seriously. My future is a balanced diet. My future is a healthy colon. My future is whole grains, water, and more lean protein and veggies. My future is ... ugh ... exercise.

So I took up strength training and Pilates, cut down on alcohol, started walking most places, and started spending the "big bucks" on organic food products, specifically meats, seafood, and ... lettuce.

Oh, lettuce! The cornerstone of my veggie intake. The foundation of "lemme just throw something together real quick."

In my new way of eating, the easiest thing for me to do was buy a bunch of pre-washed and chopped kale, pre-washed and chopped lettuce, and have different types of salads with various proteins, plus the occasional kale smoothie. Of the many, many salads I made, Kale Citrus with Ancient Grains was the fav, followed by a kale Caesar with salmon or chicken, then, when truly lazy and hungry, my take on the classic Olive Garden salad, which has always gone triple-platinum in my life. Sometimes after a long day of being painfully fabulous, I don't have the energy to cook anything, so having a salad at my disposal was clutch — until it wasn't.

Here's the latest in the war against our intestines:

Taylor Farms is recalling prepared ​foods containing jalapenos from retailers including Walmart and Whole Foods in several states over potential salmonella contamination, the second major foodborne illness linked ‌to the produce supplier in recent weeks.

The recall adds another layer of worry for consumers, who have been avoiding fresh greens at groceries and restaurants after Taylor recalled iceberg lettuce due to a cyclospora outbreak that is already among the largest foodborne illness events in recent U.S. history.

Getting rid of regulations and defunding the Food & Drug Administration is all fun and games until you're pooping yourself, possibly to death, because you were trying to be healthy.

Nothing about this is cool.

Especially in the summertime when it's clearly too damn hot to cook anything! Who wants to fire up an oven or a stove to make vegetables safe to eat by heating them, roasting them, sautéing them, or charring them? I mean, yeah, all those things will make your veggies mouth-watering, but the labor is also "skin-watering," as in you will be sweaty and gross before the meal prep is done.

But what can we do? America could have gone with the boring ol' Rich Black Auntie, but didn't, and now we get to watch her live her best skee-wee life while the country fights a losing battle with the toilet.

So, now we're stuck between a poop-poisoned jalapeno and a hard place.

Guess we're sweating while cooking! Here are some of my favorite ways to make veggies yummy that unfortunately involve using your oven in the summer.

Lemony Bliss

Ingredients: Lemon juice, lemon zest, sea salt, cracked pepper, red chili flakes, garlic, and olive oil
Best with: Almost any fresh green veggie, mushroom, or potato

These flavors make food bright and happy, whether on potatoes or brocolini. I definitely love this with crushed or pureed garlic and a freshly zested lemon, a liberal amount of salt and pepper, a pinch of red pepper flakes, then tossing broccoli in the flavors and roasting it in the oven on the top rack at 400 degrees until good and charred. I then finish the dish off with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Classic

Ingredients: Olive oil, balsamic, honey, sea salt, and cracked pepper
Best with: Brussels sprouts, asparagus, green beans, string beans, and broccoli

You can never go wrong with balsamic and honey. If it's good enough for a salad dressing, it's good enough for your roasted veggies. If you feel like going a little crazy, add some red chili flakes for a bit of heat. But it's just as good without it!

Sweet, Sour & Spicy

Ingredients: Chili crisp, low-sodium soy sauce, garlic, cracked pepper, olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and honey
Best with: Brussels sprouts, peppers and onions, broccoli, cauliflower, and more

I don't know how The Boyfriend isn't sick of my Brussels sprouts yet, as I make them almost every time I make this chili crisp and honey roasted salmon recipe* that I'm obsessed with. (*Don't be afraid of the mayo. Just use light mayonnaise, and you won't even know it's there.)

Blazin' Buffalo

Ingredients: Hot honey, olive oil, cayenne pepper, and hot sauce
Best with: Cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts

Don't sleep on buffalo cauliflower! It packs a punch! And some Frank's Red Hot will do you nicely. I like everything a little sweet, so I often will make my own hot honey with cayenne, honey, and a few teaspoons of hot sauce heated up on the stove. But if you don't want that hint of sweet with your heat, skip the hot honey and go hard with the Frank's!

Cheesy Italian

Ingredients: Parmesan, Pecorino romano, cracked black pepper, sea salt, olive oil, and lemon juice
Best with: Any roasted veggie!

Nothing like a mixed roasted veggie medley with a healthy sprinkling of cheese. While cheese is unlikely to help with your diet, beyond giving you a bit of calcium, it does make a root vegetable heartier and yummier! Add the cheese as a final finishing move unless you want it melted and burnt into your roasted veg (which is also delicious).

Also, almost all these roasted dishes can be made faster and easier in an air fryer. (I have an air fryer, but it's too big for my tiny Brooklyn kitchen, so it got banished to my cellar and has NEVER been used. Criminal.)

Now, when will our great national salad nightmare end? I have no clue. The list of things you can't eat raw keeps getting longer, not shorter. But short of planting your own gardens (which I can't do right now in Brooklyn because my backyard neighbor is running a youth hostel for rodents), cooking everything at 400 degrees in the oven is our only recourse.

Either that, or eat processed food and canned vegetables full of sodium and die slowly of hypertension and diabetes. Which I do not recommend.

For one, it doesn't taste nearly as good.