Cyclospora: The Salad that bit back.

Share your thoughtsAs always in this series, co-hosts Ashok and Meera Vasudevan pull up two chairs for a fireside chat — evidence-based, a little cheeky, and firmly in the kitchen, never the clinic. This is Part 1 of a two-part special, timed to the 2026 Cyclospora outbreak.First, the basics done properly: what cyclosporiasis is, and how you actually get it — no biology lecture, just the one thing that matters, which is that it rides in on raw food. Then the outbreak: since May, U.S. authorities have confirmed more than 1,600 cases across dozens of states, with thousands more under investigation, traced to shredded iceberg lettuce from one big processor.But the heart of this episode is the part most Western coverage misses. America counts a few thousand cases and the whole machine lights up — headlines, recalls, a share price falls. Meanwhile Cyclospora is endemic across the tropics — India, Nepal, Latin America, Southeast Asia — where it rises and falls with the rains and the real numbers are staggering, year after year, with no headlines at all. The problem is global; the noise is American. So the lesson is a global one: eat salads carefully — only the ones that actually nourish you, and only the ones that haven’t travelled like Columbus.In this episode·       Cyclosporiasis, defined — and, more usefully, how you actually get it: on raw produce and contaminated water, never off the person next to you·       Meet the parasite — a protozoan, a bit bigger and stranger than an ordinary germ·       Prevalence and proportion: America’s few thousand cases made the noise; the tropics carry the staggering numbers quietly·       The iceberg question, done properly: it’s not the water (watermelon and a tomato are water too) — it’s the empty 5%, and why romaine and arugula run rings around it·       Why washing won’t save you and heat will — and why the villain is industrial scale, not the vegetableThanks for tuning in to "Pay the Farmer, Not the Pharmacy"!Hosted by Meera & Ashok VasudevanStay Connected#PayTheFarmerNotThePharmacy#PlantBasedWellness#NaturalFood#AffordableWellness#GutHealth#ImmunityBoost#NutritionTips#CSAW (Centre for the Spread of Affordable Wellness)#Meeravasudevan#Ashokvasudevanhttps://umaglobalfoods.com/https://csaw.cohttps://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/pay-the-farmer-not-the-pharmacy/id1512934794https://open.spotify.com/show/34nzNQQ62O8tygMaut2h8V