The parasite panic didn't stop thousands of nutrition experts from chowing down on salad

• At a conference, I saw doctors and dietitians enjoying salad, despite the cyclosporiasis outbreak.
• They told me the risk doesn't warrant swearing off fresh produce, a key part of a healthy diet.
• It made me feel safer about eating salads at home — with a few extra precautions.

As a health reporter, I've spent weeks in the trenches of the cyclosporiasis outbreak, trying to decipher the gastrointestinal gamble of eating fresh produce right now.

I've talked to doctors, tracked case numbers, and tuned into FDA briefings all in the pursuit of one question: Is a piece of iceberg lettuce an accident waiting to happen right now?

Then I took a train to Washington, DC, for Nutrition 2026, one of the country's biggest nutrition conferences, where 3,000 doctors, dietitians, and food science researchers gathered to discuss healthy — and safe — eating.

The first thing that caught my attention wasn't research-related; it was lunch. Almost everyone was eating chopped salad.

A few people skipped the greens — some drenched their salad dressing on lower-risk veggies like cucumbers instead — but by and large, the nutrition community seemed OK with leafy greens.

I was a little surprised. The cyclosporiasis outbreak is still very much ongoing. To date, more than 11,000 people in 46 states have been sickened with a parasite that causes explosive diarrhea. The FDA, CDC, and local health officials recently expanded their investigation to include more states, and they are still working to trace the outbreak's sources and ultimately contain it.

So why were these health experts eating salad? I spent the weekend badgering dietitians and food safety experts about how they're deciding what's OK to put on their plates. Here's everything I learned about eating healthy food with less anxiety.

What's wrong with lettuce right now?

Cyclospora crops up in our food supply every summer.

How does it get there? Sorry to tell you… it's usually poop. Plants grow in the ground, and animals poop there. We water crops with water that may contain poop. And ultimately, fruits and veggies are picked, handled, and transported by many people before they get to your plate, and not everyone washes their hands for the full length of Happy Birthday like we were all taught in kindergarten.

While health officials still haven't identified the exact source of the current outbreak, iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms remains under investigation, and questions remain about lettuce, herbs, and berries.

Products like bagged salads can be particularly problematic because greens are mixed and then spread across large batches, allowing any hitchhiking contaminants to travel far and wide.

Why dietitians aren't panicking about produce

I talked to over a dozen dietitians, doctors, and researchers over the weekend.

No one was particularly nervous about the greens at the buffet — not because they thought the outbreak was overblown. They simply understood that the absolute risk of getting sick from any given salad remains relatively low, while the health benefits of eating vegetables remain overwhelming.

"The anxiety people feel around this outbreak is understandable," Alyssa Pike, a registered dietitian and a senior manager of food safety at the International Food Information Council, told me. She's still eating salads herself, but paying close attention to recalls and avoiding products that health officials are actively investigating.

"If you aren't comfortable eating lettuce right now," she said, "the good news is there are lots of other types of produce."

Psychologist William Hallman, who researches food risk communication at Rutgers University, said the people attending the conference have a very different relationship with the food system (and food safety) than the average consumer.

They're more familiar with how outbreaks are investigated, how contamination spreads, and how to interpret evolving public health guidance.

"In short, many consumers are avoiding salads not because the statistical risk of Cyclospora infection is high, but because the public messaging around the outbreak has been contradictory and difficult to interpret," Hallman told me. "People want to feel in control of the food choices they make for themselves and their families."

That uncertainty has become one of the defining features of this outbreak. For non-experts, cutting back on greens offers only a limited sense of comfort amid a lot of confusion.

Investigators initially thought they had found cyclospora in a Taylor Farms lettuce sample, only to later determine the result was a false positive, leading to mixed messages about what is or isn't safe to eat.

Still, the overwhelming evidence points to the iceberg lettuce, which originated in Mexico, as the source of the outbreak. Since it's been voluntarily recalled from grocery store shelves and restaurants like Taco Bell, consumers can feel safer about lunch.

There are foodborne outbreaks everywhere for those with eyes to see

Avoiding foodborne illness is tough.

The day I arrived at the conference, cyclospora wasn't the only hazard going around. The CDC announced an outbreak of Salmonella in eggs. As I was writing this, the USDA announced a recall of more than 12,000 pounds of bacon.

While I personally skipped lettuce on my trip, I was definitely loading up on scrambled eggs at the free hotel breakfast (so far, so good), and bacon wasn't on the menu. The alternative of eating ultra-processed convenience foods all weekend, plus the gallons of coffee I need to do journalism, would have led to a different kind of digestive disaster.

Back home in New York, greens have long been a part of my weekly meal prep. They still are — I've just switched to buying local, since the scale of the outbreak makes it more likely to be tied to a large distributor than to a small farm.

Holding off the iceberg lettuce this week might make sense if you're worried about this outbreak, but it doesn't mean you should swear off salad forever. If your risk tolerance is higher, you can still eat leafy greens, particularly if you know the source or if you're in an area with fewer cases of this particular illness.

If there's one thing I learned from the weekend, it is that there is no perfect way to eat. That's what the whole conference was about: how to advance the latest cutting-edge nutrition science on what's good for our bodies, while also aligning it with how we actually live our lives.

The takeaway: Be cautious, but don't panic. Stress can give you diarrhea, too.