The bright side of the tomato scare
By Patrick Kelley (Contact)
Originally published 02:02 p.m., June 12, 2008
Updated 02:02 p.m., June 12, 2008
As Investigators close in on the source of recent salmonella outbreaks, it looks as if the Great Tomato Famine is just about over — and just in time.
As a man who cooks at an Emporia restaurant pointed out, “It’s hard to make pico de gallo without tomatoes.”
The decision by restaurants and grocery stores to dump tons of probably harmless tomatoes made sense for health reasons and for business reasons. There had been enough cases of salmonella linked to tomatoes over wide areas of the country to alarm health officials and the people they work to protect. In the absence of solid information about the source of the tomatoes involved in the outbreaks, the best thing to do was pull almost all tomatoes off the shelves until better information was available.
If stores did not pull tomatoes and customers got sick, there would have been hell to pay.
One of the nice results of the produce scare is that people went back to eating locally grown tomatoes, where they were available. Local tomatoes are considered mostly safe, because the salmonella outbreak was so widespread that it was clear the tomatoes involved were from factory farms.
Locally grown tomatoes also tend to taste better and have a better texture than the mass-grown varieties. After all, truck-garden and backyard tomatoes don’t have to be picked before they are ripe, or be tough enough to survive a 1,500-mile ride in the back of a bouncing semi. Small growers don’t have to depend on the modern long-distance tomatoes. They can grow the tasty heirloom varieties that graced the gardens and the tables of our grandparents and great-grandparents.
Granted, the mass-market tomatoes have convenience and year-round availability to recommend them. But in the growing season, why not buy tomatoes grown closer to home?
Think of it as an energy-saving strategy that tastes good.
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Posted by traceygraham (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 5:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This month it's tomatoes and salmonella... not so long ago it was spinach and E coli... wonder what the next big outbreak will be?
Good points, Pat, about the many differences between factory farms and homegrown. The ones you grow yourself are the very best, but if you don't grow your own, then buy local!
Local means tastier, higher in nutrition and less likely to have been grown with lots of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Couple that with the many economic benefits of buying local and it's a no-brainer...
We've had tomatoes at the Farmers' Market the last two Saturdays. 100% salmonella-free.
We expect to see them there again every Saturday, and at the Wednesday markets beginning next week, all the way through to the first freezes in the fall.
Know your farmer - know your food!
Posted by emporialifer (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 5:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The other side to all this is how the tomato industry will fare. Spinach never came back after that situation and many companies went out of business, not because of something they did, but because of something outside of their control.
Here the FDA came out and said don't sell, buy or eat these tomatoes - even though they have still yet to 100% positively identify those products as the cause of the illnesses. Don't get me wrong - I think it's always best to error on the side of caution, but how about we figure out more preventative measures rather than constantly being in a reactive state?
Granted I don't know all the rules and regulations currently in place, so if someone does, feel free to educate me here.
Posted by mythoughts (anonymous) on June 13, 2008 at 8:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
From what I've been able to tell these tomatoes have been out there for at least 6 weeks, and the FDA did nothing. Now, instead of trying to narrow down the source, they say "don't eat any round, red tomatoes." There's not much left after that! Square tomatoes? ha ha. It's fortunate for those who chose to grow the more expensive grape and cherry tomatoes, because now we are at their mercy. And the FDA doesn't even know if it IS the tomatoes! It seems that crop contamination would be the easiest and most untraceable way for terrorists to do us all in. Yikes!
All that food wasted, when it could have been skinned, cooked, and any possible salmonella destroyed in the process.
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