The Unvegan

Recent Posts

10 Years of Unvegan
A Quick Bite at Burrito Express
Serendipity at Northern Waters Smokehaus
Twerks and Burritos at Casa Amigos

Danger

When Vegetables Attack: Enoki Mushrooms

Every so often, there is vegetable recall due to tainted vegetables. Although I consider vegetables alone to be tainted by their flavor, there are often worse surprises in store for the hapless vegetable consumer. The most recent of which is the recall of Enoki Mushrooms. They have been recalled because they contain bacteria called listeria monocytogenes. I’ve never heard of this particular strain of bacteria, but a quick search on Wikipedia tells me that it’s damn dangerous.

It’s bad enough that Enoki Mushrooms are funghi. I mean really, if they were called “Enoki Funghi,” would anyone eat them? No, of course not. The term funghi conjures up images of athlete’s foot, slime molds and that strange thing that grew in your yard as a kid that you knew you shouldn’t have eaten, but did anyway, and then your parents had to call poison control and pump your stomach. Those things are all similar enough to Enoki Mushrooms that I won’t touch them, but now throw in listeria monocytogenes and you have a severe case of When Vegetables Attack!

Give me meat and let my stomach digest in peace.

Danger! Veggie Slicers!

Only click on the thumbnails if you have a strong stomach.
Only click on the thumbnails if you have a strong stomach.

I have spent countless sleepless nights considering the fact that eating vegetables shortens the lives of poor, defenseless vegetables. Until now, however, I hadn’t considered them a danger to humans other than the foul taste and the occasional e. coli outbreak.

That all changed when a friend informed me of the anguish she endured last week when using a “veggie slicer,” aka “death machine.”

Not for the Squeamish.
Not for the Squeamish.

In an attempt to make herself a nice (tasteless), safe (vegetable-laden) meal, she innocently grabbed for the death machine, having no clue what danger lurked within the machine’s dark soul. “I was slicing some veggies on a veggie slicer. The vegetable got stuck and I tried to get it loose and sliced my fingers,” she cried emphatically. Asked whether this would have happened if she had chosen to eat meat instead, she replied, “No.”

Eight stitches later, she is no longer such an innocent vegetable eater. She is now a grizzled veteran forever doomed to look over her shoulders for fear of a loose death machine and further stitches.