The “poop parasite” memes and funny tweets are all over the Internet for the Cyclosporiasis parasite that may come from produce and bagged salads and raw berries. But Beacon-based FareGround, the food justice organization who distributes fresh produce to many individuals in need, and is connected to farms and other sources of produce, posted a helpful prevention flyer that was quite pretty.

A Little Beacon Blog reached out to FareGround to ask if it was an original design for FareGround, or if they got it from a government website. The designer, Yin Mei, who speaking for FareGround’s Instagram for that moment, answered back: “Yessss! I did design it - it’s public - welcome to share it!!”

Yin elaborated further: “It was Jamie’s idea!” Jamie Lavato is the executive director of FareGround. “Jamie had the intuition that if we are handing out produce, that it would be a great idea to hand out some public health info about the foodborne parasite. So many versions on the Internet felt too dramatic - so we designed and built a calmer, higher-agency version that we felt appropriate.”

Yin continued: “We want people not to panic, and still enjoy the benefits of healthy eating. I ate grapes yesterday, but I peeled them like I used to do in the old days. It slowed me down a little, but that’s important in life I think :). Maybe that’s the lesson.”

FareGround’s Guidance To Handling And Eating Food During The Cyclosporiasis Parasite Outbreak

FareGround shared this message with their Instagram followers:

Please pay extra attention to food handling.

🧼Wash hands and surfaces thoroughly before handling food.

🚿Wash all produce thoroughly under running water.

🍌Peel all produce that you are not going to cook.

🥘Cook all produce that you cannot peel or wash thoroughly (berries, cut greens, vegetable platters).

🫶 Avoid directly eating the pre-washed bagged veggies if possible. Berries may be hard to wash, so please exert caution.

Here at Fareground, distributing fresh farm produce to our local food system is our act of care. To support our community health, we want to offer these simple instructions to help prevent the food-borne parasite from affecting our delicious healthy meals.

Feel free to share this flyer for anyone wondering what to do about the food-borne parasite called Cyclosporiasis.

If you have good recipe ideas for our cooked-food moment, comment below.

Clean and cook your produce!

Feel free to use FareGround’s flyer for your audiences.