Ask Vegans | Demandez aux véganes

For the most part the lettuce issue has passed. It was linked to Taylor farms and the impacted lettuce has essentially all met the expiry date at this point.

However as you’ve mentioned this years been rough. Taylor farms also had the jalapeño salmonella issue, which is ongoing. Midwest poultry recalled 1.6 million eggs, also for salmonella.

It’s generally good if you avoid those vendors though, but maybe stay away from jalapeños for a bit because Taylor supplies a LOT of the industry (Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, etc have had subsequent recalls of things like guacamole made with the jalapeños)

Awesome fact: Taylor farms donated over 2 million to trump and conservative pacs in 2025, including 1 million to maga inc. and the lobby they are a part of heavily pushed to change rules about tracing outbreaks like this, about a decade ago they lobbied successfully to defund foodborne illness pathogen testing (cutting testing by about 80%), and they paid over $800k to lobby related to “food regulation”, which was potentially related to using irrigation water in farming. Farmers are supposed to have to test irrigation water because it’s frequently linked to outbreaks starting in 2025 for large farms with smaller ones over 2026/7.

So basically farmers, including Taylor farms with serious bank, have systematically broken down systems related to food safety to increase profits while literally causing death. About 3k people die per year of foodborne illness but 2026 is shaping to be a significant increase, both in mortality and number of incidents. The rising number of incidents is potentially attributable to the huge amount of cuts to federal policy about this and the increasing number of incidents combined with decreased funding means response is far slower. It’s probably going to get worse