photo by Smartypants

So, even though the scare on fresh tomatoes has lifted (oh, haven’t you heard?), apparently it is still not okay to eat fresh jalapenos. And what was it before that that we couldn’t eat…beef, or was it lettuce? It is getting hard to keep up, and doesn’t it make you wonder what is coming next? And who will be the lucky bunch of folks that gets the salmonella next?

It is interesting that we are living at a time when it is more dangerous to eat fresh foods than canned ones. Who would have thought you would have a healthier meal with a can of spam rather than a fresh ground beef taco wrapped in a lettuce leaf, and filled with fresh chopped tomatoes and jalapenos?

Maybe we should all pretend we are on tornado watch or that we are getting ready for a bomb raid and stock up on the canned foods. The sodium may not be great for us, but at least we won’t get violently ill.

The good news is salmonella will probably not kill you, unless you have a compromised immune system. It is like having a severe case of food poisoning – not very pleasant, but you will survive.

The truth is stuff happens. The earth and nature do the best they can to provide us with nutritious food and beauty. But sometimes it is difficult to determine if it is nature that is fighting back or if it is man messing up the works. According William Hubbard, a former FDA official now in charge of Alliance for a Stronger FDA,
“Produce is produced in a very complicated system where you have a lot of movement, a lot of trans-shipment and commingling. It makes it very, very difficult to trace a given tomato back to its source,”

I’m guessing it’s a man-made problem. That’s probably a biased opinion, but I stand by it. Go figure.

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Kim McGinnis, Be Like Nature