Local Tomatoes & Salmonella - Who's Afraid?

[GoneOffShore]

About five years ago we stopped buying fruits and vegetables from super markets. We flirted with CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture coops) for awhile, but found that they limited choice too much. Now we're only doing locally grown produce bought from farm stands or at Reading Terminal Market (and only from specific merchants). We're lucky in that there is a good network of local producers here in Philadelphia and an increasingly wide selection of farmers markets.

I just got the following from Fair Food on the present BIG SCARE!!

This week, American consumers have been overrun with a fear of salmonella from one of our favorite vegetables (or fruits for that matter)… tomatoes! The media are having a field day, parents are worried, and kids have another excuse to get out of eating their vegetables.

There is something strange about this situation, however. Salmonella does not naturally occur in or on tomatoes or other produce. It is an animal-borne bacteria, which can only be spread to produce or other food products through cross contamination, such as careless food handling. The centralized industrial food system allows enormous corporate farms to raise large numbers of animals on small amounts of land in confined conditions. Though no one knows exactly where or how this outbreak occurred, this is the ideal environment for spreading bacteria like salmonella. Within a system that encourages "efficiency" over food safety, products can be handled improperly, thus increasing the risk of a food-borne illness outbreak. Coupled with the inability to trace where all this corporate food originates, this system exacerbates the outbreaks. One instance of contamination can quickly impact 17 different states, as in our current situation! Panic often ensues, so even though PA and NJ growers have been ruled OUT as the culprits, they can still struggle to sell their crops.

Luckily, if you are shopping at the Farmstand, none of this will affect you. Supporting smaller sustainable farms encourages genetic diversity and humane conditions for workers and animals. Buying locally also minimizes the distance that food travels. Most importantly, we know where our tomatoes come from, how they are produced, and who handles them--the best way to prevent the spread of food-borne illness like salmonella and enjoy your favorite farm-fresh products. This week, red and green tomatoes from Green Meadow Farm and grape tomatoes from Paradise Organics can provide your tomato fix until July when we will be up to our elbows in heirlooms!

So, support your local farmer.

"If you like to look at farmland, you have to eat the landscape."

[wryter2000]

1. Not I

I grow my own tomatoes. Those and farmers market tomatoes are the only ones I eat.

We have an organic farmers market where I work every Friday. It's a great idea.

[GoneOffShore]

3. I wish I didn't have "black thumbs"

I kill plants, so it's difficult for me to grow stuff.

[wryter2000]

16. I'm sorry

It's such a delight to eat your own food. I picked a pattypan squash for my dinner last night. Once you've eaten homegrown, you realize what vegetables are supposed to taste like.

If BushCo has left you with a few extra dollars, may I suggest you try one of these? In my experience, they're great for tomatoes.

www.earthbox.com

[Donnachaidh]

2. I have my first two tomatoes of the season ripening on the vine on my patio

And I have four other plants getting ready to pop some more out. We said no more when the local supermarkets were selling vine-ripened tomatoes for 2.99 a pound.

I wonder if we will ever learn how the salmonella got started. Not with this ineffectual EPA. Heckuva Job, *!

[ben_meyers]

4. Did you leave the safety of your home today?

Less than 200 people have been sickened by this latest outbreak, 1 death of an immune compromised cancer patient and an entire industry is now at risk.

I hope you don't leave the house,

120 people a day are murdered in this country.
almost 60 people a day are killed in traffic accidents.

I'll take my chances with a tomato.

[GoneOffShore]

6. Hey, I walked to work

And I'm about to have a fresh tomato and basil salad. Basil from my garden.

The only place I'm afraid to go to is the super market. Plastic cheese, antibiotic filled meat and genetically modified vegetables. I'll stick with the farmers markets.

[ben_meyers]

8. Be careful

14 Pedestrians a day are killed

Pedestrian safety has become a bigger issue partly because of efforts that have promoted walking to address a range of issues, from reducing obesity to promoting use of public transit. A total of 4,881 pedestrians were killed by vehicles in 2005, the latest complete year for which statistics are available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's down 13% from 1995 but up 4% from 2004.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-26-pedestrian-deaths_N.htm

[GoneOffShore]

15. What is your problem?

I post about the advantages and benefits of buying local produce and you turn it into some sort of 'you must be paranoid' issue?

We're talking about food security here and how the agribusiness mono-crop model is failing us.

Do you try to hijack threads all the time or do you just like to do this shit for fun?

[kestrel91316]

10. Ben, we already know you REPUBLICANS don't give a damn

about food contamination. Or the environment.

Go ahead, be my guest, eat all the shit-contaminated food you want. It suits.

[ben_meyers]

12. Still pissed about that sweater I see.

BTW big snow storm east of you, better keep it handy.

Storm dumps June snow in Boise Mountains

http://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews/story/407162.html

[kestrel91316]

14. ???? Idaho is almost due north of me. I guess they don't teach

geography in fundie homeschool, either......

Are you making a crack about my fabulous $2 Italian-made 100% merino wool cardigan "grandma" sweater from Goodwill?????? The one they will have to pry from my cold dead hands????

[slampoet]

17. Food safety is about protecting the least of our brothers and sisters.

“Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of My brothers, you have done it unto Me.”


-Jesus H. Christ

[Sundoggy]

5. Not me

I only consume coffee. Oh, and beef.

[shanti]

7. i'm in nor cal

not scared and i had some on my sandwich today. oh, and i have to pots of tomatoes growning in the yard - big red ones and little yellow pear ones:)

[kestrel91316]

9. The only question you need to ask the grower of your tomatoes:

Do you apply uncomposted animal manures to your crops?

[stillcool]

11. Government warnings....

don't do anything for me anymore. I don't think there is any food group that the government has not threatened would kill me. And yet..here I am.

[conscious evolution]

13. My house grows its own tomatoes.And squash

and cucmbers and bananas and beans and strawberrys and herbs and corn and lettuce and romaine and collards and stuff that I can't even identify.
So,no,I am not afraid.