Concerns about animal enteropathogen contamination of fresh horticultural products have increased worldwide and are mainly due to the ability of bacteria to survive under stress conditions in the agricultural environment and during raw vegetable processing. This review challenges the idea that the viable but non-culturable phenomenon that has been proven to occur in plant-associated environments contributes to human pathogen survival and might be

Leafy vegetables including lettuce and spinach have been implicated in several outbreaks of foodborne disease caused by Escherichia coli O157:H7, a pathogen of increasing public health significance due to the severity of gastrointestinal illness and long term, chronic sequellae that can result from infection. Definitive association between consumption of leafy vegetables and human disease provides implicit evidence of transfer from animal sources