Between the companies pushing junk food and the bacteria threatening our produce, eating right feels basically impossible

While war and conflict seem to be raging across the planet, the greatest weapon of mass destruction afflicting the United States today is, apparently, a salad – in the sense that fresh produce is now waging battle with our stomachs thanks to the cyclospora parasite. Cyclospora has infested an unknown amount of our food, causing thousands to suffer bowel movements that would make Pompeii look like a gender-reveal party.

This is a tragedy for everyone except the fat cats at Big Toilet. Cyclospora may be spread through human feces getting into irrigation systems in the food supply due to poor worker hygiene. It can’t be killed through usual agricultural sanitation processes. The best we can do is throw all that cilantro away and start from scratch. The FDA is scrambling to find the source of the contamination as soon as possible, going as far as to finger the supplier Taylor Farms with a false positive test that they had to sloppily retract as fast as they declared it. I, for one, am trembling, and not because I’m seconds away from expelling parasitic eggs. I’m terrified because now I don’t know what to eat.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Authorities said inquiry into cyclosporiasis outbreak was continuing but early results pointed to salad greens and lettuce

• What is cyclosporiasis, the parasitic illness causing ‘explosive’ diarrhea?

State health officials in Michigan said on Monday they have identified lettuces and salad greens as a “potential source” of the thousands of cases of cyclosporiasis – a parasitic infection that causes “watery diarrhea”, loss of appetite and weight loss.

In a statement, the Michigan department of health and human services said the investigation is still continuing, but early results “point to lettuce or salad greens as a potential source for this outbreak”, though officials also cautioned it is too early to rule out other food sources.

Two other small British children who stayed at same hotel fell critically ill from same condition months earlier

The travel company Tui is under scrutiny over its safety protocols after a British baby girl died from a gastric illness following a stay at an Egyptian hotel – the same resort where two other children were left critically ill from the same condition months earlier.

Ariella Mann, one, died in January from a kidney condition linked to E coli after falling ill at the five‑star Jaz Makadi Aquaviva hotel in Hurghada on an all‑inclusive two‑week package holiday booked through Tui.

Exclusive: Documents released to campaign group 38 Degrees reveal UK officials briefed on possibility of altering food standards

British officials were briefed on the possibility of allowing chemical-washed chicken into the UK before a meeting with the US embassy, new documents reveal.

The Food Standards Agency is also looking at studies performed in the US on washing chicken with bacteriophages, including chlorine dioxide, to remove pathogens, according to the documents, released to the campaign group 38 Degrees under freedom of information laws.

Clinical reports show the children had consumed batches of recently recalled products, UKHSA says

Dozens of children are reported to have been experiencing symptoms of toxin poisoning after the recall of various baby formulas, the UK Health Security Agency has said.

The reports follow the Food Standards Agency confirming the recall of several batches of Nestlé infant formula and follow-on formula products on 5 January due to the possible presence of the cereulide toxin.