State Health officials on Friday announced that green whole head cabbage was the probable source of E. coli illness that was traced in a few of the Applebee restaurants in Minnesota during this summer.

State investigators have revealed that people were found ill between June 25 and July 3. During their investigation, they interviewed 14 individuals. They found that of 14 individual, 13 of them ate at nine Applebee's restaurants in Minnesota and one of them ate at a Yard House restaurant.

It was found that all the sufferers of the illness ate green whole head cabbage. Officials believe that the produce was contaminated before it reached the restaurant for sale.

As per the Health Officials, routine monitoring disclosed that the cases of illness were linked with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O111. They found that the bacterial isolates collected from all the cases had the same DNA fingerprints.

Sources reported that people who were suffering from the illness were hospitalized and all have recovered now. As of now, no such cases of illness have come to light in Minnesota.

Symptoms of the illness start normally with stomach cramps and diarrhea and regular blood in stools. People usually fall ill after two to five days of exposure, which may even vary. They say the time duration may even reach to one to at least eight days. It generally takes five to 10 days for a person to recover from the illness, say experts.

Adding on to it, they said that the infection spreads easily amongst elders and youngsters with a weaker immune system.

E. coli is a rod shaped bacterium of genus Esherichia, which is generally found in the lower intestine of organisms with warm blood. E. coli causes severe food poising and is sometimes responsible for larger food recalls as it causes food contamination.