Salmonella In Our Tomatoes
The S-word creates quite a big stir each time it is mentioned in the news. It used to be chicken that was in the forefront when the issue of salmonella came up. Now it’s in tomatoes!
So what happened?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says a cluster of nine cases of salmonella poisoning in a single geographic location, may lead to the source of an outbreak – it appears that all of the sickened individuals ate similar tomatoes.
The cluster is possibly nine cases reported by the Chicago Department of Health where the victims ate at two restaurants from the same chain but food safety officials continue to maintain that the outbreak is not linked to a single restaurant or grocery store chain.
Tomatoes from dozens of states and countries whose producers have not been linked to the outbreak have been identified by the FDA and include California, northern Florida and Baja California in Mexico.
The outbreak has been linked by health officials to raw plum, Roma and round tomatoes and consumers are warned to avoid those tomatoes if they come from producers not yet cleared by FDA.
At the time of the initial outbreak the major tomato suppliers were in Mexico and Florida and this has been the main focus of investigators.
According to the CDC the bacterial strain responsible for the current outbreak, Salmonella serotype Saintpaul, is uncommon and last year there were only 25 reported cases of the saintpaul strain with the same genetic fingerprint as that seen in the current outbreak – Mexican officials say Salmonella Saintpaul has never been found in Mexico.
Salmonella bacteria are often the culprit in food-borne illnesses and symptoms include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain and generally appear within 12 hours to 72 hours of eating tainted food.
It has been weeks since the first case of salmonella contamination was reported. Things seem to be alright now and restaurants are starting to serve tomatoes again. But I am sure those 227 people who have fallen ill because of the contaminated tomatoes will not be eating tomatoes anytime soon.
Photos courtesy of Zeetz Jones
June 19, 2008 at 11:16 am
[...] different varieties would have vegetables, other kinds of seafood, and sometimes sesame seed. Whether the fish is cooked or not, the fact that sushi has very low fat content remains the same. More so, sushi also has low [...]
June 25, 2008 at 3:50 am
WSU Extension Launches “Food Safety in a Minute” Podcast Series
RENTON, Wash. – An outbreak of salmonella in tomatoes and spinach takes food off the grocery shelves. Avian flu in chickens and BSE in cattle result in the destruction of millions of birds and cows. A natural disaster shuts down electricity, and your refrigerator warms up. Is your food safe to eat?
A new series of podcasts from Washington State University Extension helps answer some of these questions. Each “Food Safety in a Minute” podcast offers listeners a handy, easy-to-apply tip. The first in the series is available Wednesday, June 25. Additional podcasts in the series will be posted each Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
With 76 million Americans a year experiencing a food-borne illness, this is a series you, your readers and listeners, and your family can’t afford to miss.
Simple practices like washing hands, keeping the kitchen clean and cooking foods properly are only the obvious first steps in keeping food safe. As consumers we think know how to tell food that is safe to eat from food that is not—but the “sight and smell test” is not a reliable method of detecting food pathogens. Spoilage micro-organisms don’t make us sick, pathogens do—but food containing pathogens such as E. coli or salmonella look and taste just fine.
The Food Safety in a Minute podcast series addresses a wide gamut of issues, including holiday food safety, packing school lunches to insure children are eating safe food, how long to store canned food, and many other topics.
Visit the Food Safety in a Minute Web page at http://cahnrsnews.wsu.edu/foodsafety/ to download the first in the series. Subscribe to the RSS feed to insure you don’t miss an installment. Each podcast is one minute long (and a one megabyte download or stream), making it perfect for use on radio and for the general public on the go.