Sprouts, raw fish on attorney's 'do not eat' list

So what won't you eat if you spend your days focused on horrific food-poisoning cases?

Turns out William Marler's "Do Not Eat" list is short and sweet.

• No raw oysters or raw fish.

• No sprouts. "It's like a petri dish," Marler said of the way they're grown.

• No bagged leafy greens. The greens from dozens of fields are mixed together, so there's more chance of contamination. It's better to buy whole heads of lettuce.

• No hot dogs.

• No unpasteurized juice or milk.

• And no hamburgers. "My growth industry lately has been frozen, preform patties," he said. Scrap meat from thousands of cows gets mixed together at processing plants, so there's no telling what you're getting. If you don't cook them all the way through — which most people don't — any bacteria might survive.

As for the organic craze, Marler isn't convinced the food is safer. Some in the organic community, in fact, are fighting food-safety legislation under consideration in Congress because they think the regulations unfairly burden small farmers.

"The local and organic people need to pay more attention to food safety," he said. "They say if you can look a farmer in the eye, he won't poison you. I say bull."

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com