Eat Pray Poo
Opinion — Hidden Highs
If you’re Gen X or Millennial and did high school in Virginia, you remember Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. You also remember the class reaction: one loud “ewww.” That revulsion helped pass the Pure Food and Drug Act because people realized their meat was filthy.
A century later the setting isn’t a stockyard. It’s the supplement aisle and the gas-station counter. The product is kratom.
The Outbreak They Don’t Want Discussed
In 2018, CDC and FDA traced a nationwide Salmonella outbreak to kratom products. 199 infections, 41 states, 54 hospitalizations. Multiple serotypes showed up in powders, capsules, and teas. It was the first time kratom was confirmed as a vehicle for Salmonella in the United States. The contamination was so widespread that FDA announced 13 recalls and, when one firm refused, issued a mandatory recall for kratom products.
How Does a Plant Get That Dirty?
Salmonella means fecal contamination. It moves by the fecal–oral route. Something traveled from an intestine to someone’s mouth.
Kratom is grown, dried, and milled overseas with minimal hygiene controls. Think open floors, open air, animal traffic. In U.S. warehouses, inspectors documented poor sanitation. Unlike food plants, there is no required heat step to kill pathogens. A dry plant powder can harbor live Salmonella for months. That is an ass-to-mouth supply chain pretending to be “natural wellness.”
The Jungle, Rebooted
Sinclair aimed for the conscience and hit the stomach. The kratom industry is the sequel. Same “all natural” sales pitch. Same unsanitary reality. Less oversight.
“Proudly Tested for Fecal Bacteria”
After the outbreak, some brands started bragging that products are “tested for Salmonella and E. coli.” Imagine a restaurant where the server smiles and says, “We proudly test all our food for fecal bacteria.” You would leave. Yet in the supplement aisle, that line is sold as a quality seal.
If a product’s biggest brag is “we check for poop,” maybe it shouldn’t be for human consumption.
Bottom Line
This is America. If you intend something for people to ingest, it should be free of fecal contamination. Kratom failed that basic test. People from Florida to Oregon got sick not because of chemistry but because of sanitation.
When an industry turns fecal testing into a marketing feature, that isn’t progress. It’s a punch line. For everyone who still remembers that classroom “ewww”, the lesson is unchanged: If you have to test it for poop, don’t put it in your mouth.
References
- Schwensohn C, et al. A Multiple-Serotype Outbreak of Salmonella Infections Linked to Kratom, United States, 2017–2018. Foodborne Pathog Dis. 2022;19(9):648–653.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Orders Mandatory Recall for Kratom Products Due to Risk of Salmonella. 2018.