How’s this for irony? Tomato lovers wait all year for the season of one of our favorite foods, eagerly anticipating the opportunity to sink our teeth into something that actually tastes like a glorious, vine-ripened tomato, and wham – a 17-state outbreak of salmonella-related illness makes national headlines, and fresh tomatoes are identified as the culprit! Consumers were warned to avoid fresh round or Roma tomatoes or any dish made with uncooked tomatoes of those varieties. The news stories contain some information about the salmonella bacteria itself, namely that is found in the fecal matter of animals and humans and does not occur naturally in or on tomatoes. The stories invariably avoided speculation about the kind of farms where such contamination could occur or how it could happen. The truth is that for the contamination to be widespread enough to affect people in 16 states, the tomatoes would have to come from a big agribusiness factory-farm operation with very widespread distribution. The salmonella contamination most likely happened to the tomatoes in much the same way as it did to the spinach that was tainted with E. coli bacteria in 2006 – the tomatoes or fields were probably irrigated with water contaminated with fecal matter.
In response to the outbreak, large Texas-based grocery chains Randalls and HEB pulled fresh tomatoes from their produce departments, and restaurants across the spectrum from Sonic drive-ins to sophisticated fine-dining outlets left fresh round or Roma tomatoes off sandwiches, burgers, salads, and garnishes. On Friday, June 6, the Texas Department of Agriculture circulated a bulletin from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stating that based on their trace-back review procedures and production/distribution patterns, the FDA could verify that tomatoes grown in Texas, California, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Puerto Rico, Belgium, Canada, Israel, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Holland were not associated with the disease outbreak. Florida was added to the safe list on June 10.
While that is certainly great news for Texas tomato farmers, I would like to go a step further. The best solution to this kind of problem, short of growing your own fruits and vegetables, is to know where your food comes from. Buy local, invest in a relationship with the person who raises your food, and develop an awareness of where and how the food your family eats is raised, harvested, and distributed. Ask questions in the produce department. Support stores and restaurants that feature locally grown produce in the season when it grows naturally. That factory-farmed tomato was bred for size, shape, ease of picking, packing, and shipping, rather than flavor. It was picked green and gassed into a state that mimics ripeness. It has a big carbon footprint and very little flavor. The vine-ripened local tomato is safer and better tasting – better all the way around. I buy tomatoes at the farmers’ market and enjoy them with abandon! Here is an adage to shop by: The closer the fork to the farm, the better the flavor and the safer the food.
This article appears in June 13 • 2008.