What Is It With Produce These Days?

Question

There's always some strain of Salmonella whether it's in your spinach, your lettuce --- and now, your tomatoes?

What's causing these outbreaks lately? Have they always happened, only the media has brought more attention to this issue nowadays? I know they say the cause of contamination is animal fecal matter?

But is it because they're using manure as fertilizer on a lot of these crops, and maybe need to stop?

Answer 1

I am totally on board with Bohemian Garnet up there!   You also might notice that whenever there is big news about a product recall, it is about a food that is basic....like ground beef, tomatoes, green onions, spinach....how many people know why there are no longer Totinos/Jenos pizzas at most supermarkets?   This is because big agribusiness wants you to think that real food is dangerous.  It is also important to notice that these are not about things from your local farmer's market....

If you want to do something revolutionary, eat fresh, local food.  Read Michael Pollan's new book "In Defense of Food" or Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" for some great insight on this.   With GMO crops tainting our heirlooms, and Agribusiness manipulating the media to make us think real food is bad, it won't be long before we find the everlasting Twinkie as the only thing on the supermarket shelves.

Answer 2

Some of this comes from careless farmers, some of it comes from the fact we have an industrial food system that handles an amazing amount of food, some of it is careless post harvest handling, either in the packing house or in the kitchen (both home and restaurant). most out breaks are found in pre packaged/cut food that come from farms that are not organic (even the spinach was not organic though there were certified and transitional to organic fields on the farm).

Also field workers are not paid well and rarely given proper bathroom facilities that include a hand washing station, many use the irrigation ditches instead of walking over a mile to the bathroom (and getting their pay docked in the process)

is it the fault of fertilizer? Perhaps as on conventional farms there are few regulations over how raw manure can be used. on organic farms there are very strict regulations over the use of manure. it cannot be used within 6 months on a field that will be growing leafy green and root crops (spinach and green onions, for example). Compost can be used up to a few weeks before harvest. Since compost pasteurizes the manure and the pathogens there is an almost zero chance of produce being contaminated by compost.

It would be a bad practice to stop using manure as fertilizer as it does so much good for the soil, it just needs to be managed better and perhaps regulations for ALL growers, not just the organic farms need to be put in place.

Add to all of this the fact that most of our produce (around 60%) comes from developing foreign countries that have bad water systems and no regulations to use on manure all because we demand cheap food.

Shipping packaged food thousands of miles is another big problem. Many food born pathogens thrive in prepackaged refrigerated food that is stored for a week or more before getting to the point of sale. And all it takes is one dirty hand in the packing facility to contaminate tons and tons of produce.

I guess you get what you pay for. Buy locally raised food, it will be fresher and likely far safer.

Answer 3

I don't mean to be rude, but people like you scare the c**p out of me.  People like you who are afraid of ever germ that comes down the pike help get laws enacted that drive small farmers like myself out of business.

Stop and THINK for a moment....how does nature fertilize the bounty she provides for the wild animals?  Rotten leaves, dead roots, dead animals, and MANURE.  

For the most part humans have gotten themselves so far removed from agriculture and any livestock, they have no immunities things anymore.  

You are dependant on the giant agricultural machine...WASH you food....use hydrogen peroxide, or even weak bleach water.  DO NOT lobby for more laws and regulations.  

If you are worried about salmonella, do not eat raw food, like salads ever.

Do not ever go to Mexico, or any third world country.

Do not ever eat a raw, or undercooked egg.

Do not ever touch any reptile, even pet ones.

Do not ever eat Hollandaise sauce, fresh made mayo, real ceasar salad, or a merange pie.

Did you know that young children who are exposed to salmonella can develop antibodies to it?  

By the way, if you are HONESTLY worried about salmonella, you might want to concider purchasing your fresh fruits and vegtables from a farmer like myself, who DOES grow their foods in animal manures.  You see I'm a small farmer.  I do all of the harvesting and growing myself.

I do not have migrant workers from Mexico working in my fields.....and using the fields as a bathroom.  When I have to use the bathroom, I go inside.  

I bet you've never seen a field that is a section big being harvested, have you?  A section is one mile, by one mile.  If they are lucky, there will be ONE porta potty brought out to the field.  Do you honestly believe a worker is going to walk a mile (and one mile back to where they were working), or more, to use a porta potty, when they are paid not by the hour, but by how much they harvest?

Once the salmonella, or Ecoli, or whatever the disease of the week is, gets on the conveyer belts, and the water systems of these huge mono crop, harvesting, packaging, and trasporting systems, how many food products do you suppose those systems can contaminate in a day....or an hour?

Or you can buy from the small farmer, who shleped out early that morning, harvested goodies from their garden, and took them to the farmers market.  We might have rised things off with the garden hose too.  The manure in my garden came from the meat goats and meat rabbits I raise.  The goats eat pasture, or hay.

It DIDN'T come from a migrant worker, or cattle that are kept on feed lots and fed hidious amounts of corn.  Did you know that feeding cattle corn is what causes the Ecoli bacteria in them?  Grass/hay fed cattle have almost zero Ecoli.

The manure in my garden was deposited last fall.  That so the fall and winter rains had their chance to break it down, as the worms, ants, and microbial life also did.  By the time I go to plant, it's really not manure anymore...it's soil.  

Of course the right to grow in manure (and build up healthy soil, RICH in trace minerals and nutrients) can be taken away by people like yourself, who freak out, and buy into the whole "farms are dirty, and manure is BAD," idea.  Companies like Monsanto, ConAgra, and Cargill love you.  You help give them even more of a stranglehold on the nations food supply, by driving even more small farmers out of business, by enacting even more legislation.

I sugest you do some honest research into how modern agriculture is harvested, and makes it to your plate.  You'll be shocked....I promise.

There's a major flour mill about five miles down the road from my farm.  Did you know that the wheat you are eating that is turned to flour to make your bread, pizza dough, and noodles is mounded up outside, completely exposed to the eliments?

Pigeons walk on it, eat it, and of course p**p on it.  Rodents come at night and steal from the edges.  Bulldozers scoop it up, and dump it where it needs to go, whether that is railcars, or underground storage systems when they finally empty as they grind the wheat to flour.  Did you think those systems were sterile and tidy?  Did you know that many of the flour mills shut down for a while in the spring, and fumigate for the rodents?  Yes, I do mean here in the U.S.A.

Most of the crops you eat (unless you purchase organics) are fertilized by oil based chemicals.  So if the news states the tomatoes have a fecal contamination, guess what, it's not animal....it's human.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 4

Since the US has gotten so chummy with Mexico alot of our fruit and vegetables come from there, and they irrigate regularly with sewer water (human waste).  That's where some of the problem comes from.  If you don't like that source call or write your state representatives and tell them to put a stop to receiving fruits/vegetables from third world countries.  

Sometimes here in the US wild animals get into the fields looking for food, and of course, where ever animals are that's where they will p**p.  So it gets mixed in with whatever field greens the animal happens to be in.  

The best way to protect yourself is to wash everything that comes into your house, even though it's been cut and packaged.  Just because it's cut and packaged doesn't mean it's clean (obviously).

Answer 5

Hmph... That's a diffucult question and it could be lots of different things! I'd Google it if you haven't already!

Answer 6

Farmers being careless and using the wrong products. Being careless, you can handle manure and then handle the produce. Or the manure is already infected with some disease, otherwise it's pests that spread it.

I know that with meat, in bad meat facilites that don't separate the p**p and the meat and the workers don't get a fair chance or such, the fecal matter gets on the meat and is sold that way, and when not cooked enough, gives you such diseases.

Answer 7

You hear frequently in regard to nearly everything, "what happened to the good old days"? Things really haven't changed so much as there are just a h**l of a lot more people who can communicate instantly. Salmonella has always been around and anytime that foreign animal bacteria (and virus), soil bacteria, and other animal gut bacteria comes in contact with us or our food there is the potential for us to get that foreign bacteria into our own digestive tract or open wound. Improper food cleaning, handling and storage anywhere from the farm to our own kitchen can be a source of contamination and the more a food has to get shuffled from it's origin to our mouths, the more problems can occur. A great many animals have Salmonella associated with them and ingestion of the bacteria wreaks havoc with our systems. Of course we have made it worse because we have breed for a stronger more resistant strain because of all the anti-biotics we use in our daily life, these strains being more a problem with a whole lot less solutions. Aside from keeping a sterile kitchen where your food is concerned, it is so important to wash all your foods regardless of the type of food as well as hands and all the surfaces your food comes in contact with. Salmonella will be found in soils that have been exposed to some animal manures as a fertilizer as well as by passing animals or dirty humans. A question; do you think that a migrant worker getting half minimum agricultural wage is gonna leave the field that he/ she is currently picking to find a bathroom as he/ she has got a case of "The Trots"? How far will they be willing to run and are they going to wash their hands? When darkness comes and a flock of geese settle in the fields for a night of rest, do they care where they "go"? When food is picked and boxed much of it is dew/ irrigation water covered at best so all that splash comes home with you after it festers in a truck and store a while. Now we know that all those upset stomachs and minor flu (which isn't) is caused from things like E. coli and Salmonella, to name a couple. The use of organics like all forms of cultivation, need to be followed up by your good cleaning before eating. Raw foods especially, and cooked foods as well with emphasis on proper heating/ cooking after. Just using chemical agricultural products will hardly lessen any contamination.

Answer 8

That's the way it's been done for quite a long while. Information is just more quickly available these days. And ppl are much more likely to investigate every aspect down to the nub in order to place blame.

Farmers need to step up their health guidelines though.

Answer 9

We are living in a generation of instant communication, with the Internet and 24 hours a day news stations. A few years ago a Salmonella outbreak in Texas would not even be heard of in California. Today everywhere in the country knows that there is a problem with Salmonella in tomatoes within a few minutes. Actually there are probably no more problems with it today than before, we just know about it now. For the most part, this is a good thing. It alerts everyone that there is a problem out there and to take measures to protect yourself from it. But it can also cause fear and panic which can result in thousands of pounds of good food to go uneaten or destroyed. It can cause huge financial losses that some may not be able to overcome.

Salmonella occurs naturally in fecal material, both human and animal. Animal manure is an excellent fertilizer and is used extensively in organic agriculture. If used improperly it may cause Salmonella problems. But it is likely the problem has resulted from human contamination through picking and handling. It could as well come from fruit grown in other countries that use untreated human waste as fertilizer. The answer is not eliminating the use of animal manure as a fertilizer. It is education in the proper use of it, and letting people know that the proper washing and/or cooking of produce is essential, no matter the source, because if you didn't raise it yourself, you have no way of knowing how it was raised.