One bad pepper explains the whole bunch? Doubtful.
Over the past two months, American food consumers have gotten quite a bit of advice from the FDA:
First there was: you Texans stop eating tomatoes. Then: No wait! Everybody stop eating tomatoes! No, don’t stop eating those tomatoes. Those tomatoes are okay. We think. Maybe. And: No, it’s not the jalapenos. You can eat the jalapenos – but you should not eat the basil. And maybe cilantro. We think. Probably. We don’t know, okay? Stop yelling at us. Dammit, we have a plan. Fine! Eat whatever you want. No wait. On second thought, don’t eat the jalapenos! Or the serrano peppers.
At this point, how much confidence do you have in the FDA? How likely is it they will change their mind on the source – again?
The truth is they don’t know where the St. Paul strain of salmonella originated.
We import produce to meet demand. We warehouse it, ship it, send it through distributors’ hubs to points all across the country. It’s a complicated supply network, which means pinpointing the source of contamination is like finding a needle in a haystack.
So, the advice your mother gave you is far better than any alert or advisory issued by the Food and Drug Administration. Remember how she said: “Don’t put that in your mouth! You don’t know where it’s been!”
It applies.
If you buy your produce from Farmer Brown or grow and preserve your own, your risks, while still present, are minimal and tracking foodborn illness just got a lot easier.
Unfortunately and for the longest time, Americans seemed to have forgotten how seeds, sun, dirt and water work. Oh, they pondered over the miracle when the 6-year-old grew a marigold for a class project, but for the most part, they believed their food came from the same place their milk did. You know – the grocery store.
Now, we’re starting to see a turnaround in our way of thinking. We’re more conscious of where our food comes from, how it’s grown and prepared. We’re taking more responsibility for our own safety and attempting to eliminate some of the risks.
In fact, the same folks, who derisively called me “a tree-hugging hippy mom” because I went out of my way to purchase produce from the makeshift farmers market or wandered off to area farms to “pick-my-own-produce” waved when we pass with our buckets o’ freshness this year.
Folks are starting to catch on.
Too bad it took a war, rising gas prices, fear of food shortages and a record case of the shits afflicting the entire nation for us to arrive at this point. I guess God, fate, and the government all have ways of keeping us humble, huh?
