... it kills the germs.
Posted on 07/21/2008 12:56:28 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Tomatoes are OK, but watch out for jalapenos, avocados and serrano peppers.
That’s what state and federal health departments are saying now after months of searching for the source of a nationwide salmonella outbreak. Originally thought to be traced to tomatoes, now, after Texas and North Carolina’s departments of state health services located tainted produce from a south Texas importer/distributor, officials are telling people to be wary of other produce often used in Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine.
The importer, Grande Produce, is conducting a voluntary recall of all peppers and avocados it distributed.
Confusion among what to eat and what to avoid can largely be avoided by washing produce and washing hands, said Jennifer Jackson, director of nurses at the Williamson County and Cities Health District.
“Any food you eat that is grown using fertilyzer needs to be washed thoroughly,” Jackson said. “Good hand washing is a good thing. You need a good 20 seconds of warm soapy water.”
Jackson said pet lizards and reptiles such as turtles, iguanas and snakes also may carry some of the bacteria responsible for salmonella. Owners of those household critters should take extra care in washing their hands frequently.
Cooking all meats and vegetables, especially chicken and eggs, thoroughly also will greatly reduce risks of contracting the disease.
In Williamson County, 10 out of 26 reported cases of salmonella were linked to the outbreak. There have been more than 1,000 cases reported nationally with a large portion, 474, originating in Texas.
The number of cases may seem exorbitant, something that could be attributed to the large amount of publicity the outbreak has received. Jackson said doctors could be testing for salmonella more often, leading to more reported cases.
“It’s not that there is more disease, there is more testing,” she said. “The public is very aware so when they develop a diarrhea illness they may say, ‘Hey, I could have salmonella.’”
There is no firm treatment for salmonella beyond waiting it out for the typical four to seven-day period of affliction. However, in severe cases people may need to go to the hospital because of dehydration, Jackson said.
The elderly, very young and those with impaired immune systems are most at risk for deaths related to the illness.
Is this a backhanded way of saying it was Mexico?
Thanks for sharing.
Ping of interest to gardeners and foodies!!!!!!!!!
From the liberal mind as witnessed yesterday in the grocery store:
Liberal - Did you read this warning about peppers?
Cletus - Yes. I heard it on the radio yesterday, too.
Liberal - I’ve got some serrano peppers in my garden. Should I have them tested?
Cletus - (muttering)...ungh....manbearpig...kitties needed.
I ignore all of these “consumer warnings.”
Until thousands of people have either died or fallen sick, it’s just hype.
In a country of 300 million - a handful of people getting sick isn’t even a coincidence.
Sheesh.............I can just picture that.
“It’s not that there is more disease, there is more testing,” she said.”
Doh!! Blame anything but our FOOD being IMPORTED from 3rd world countries!
“watch out for jalapenos, avocados and serrano peppers.”
They still have no clue.
.
Thread topic of some discomfort
I ignore all of this nonsense, including - butter will kill you, don’t eat beef, coffee is no good, don’t drink red wine, bla bla bla bla bla, if I listened to any of this nonsense I’d be drinking water only, can’t even have bread cuz white flour will kill ya.....exercise and eat everything in moderation.....
Yep. It comes down to the individual and NOT eliminating the source (Mexican imports). After hurting the southeast’s tomato crop, you wouldn’t want the Mexican pepper crop to be destroyed, would you.
Mexicanas...happily importing the salmonella Americans refuse to cultivate here!
Water has E-coli in it! Don’t drink the water!
[Thread topic of some discomfort]
Jalapenos have always been a discomfort for me and forget serranos!!
This all involves fresh produce, buy your jalapenos in a jar and they will be fine. I knew tomatos were off the list but love avacados and buy them a lot. Thick skin, washing well should do it.
Luckily, my jalapenos and banana peppers are beginning to produce like crazy. Thanks for the ping.
And that annoys the you know what out of me.
I just finished reading an article about how Virginia's tomato growers are still hurting. Tomatoes are the number 1 field crop in VA, and one of the big growers near me says demand has been down 30% so far.
LOL! Now what??? I’ll have to resort to beer!!!
Great news!!!!!
I’m waiting for someone to explain to me how does the Salmonella infect the tomato. How does it get on the inside of the tomato?
Tomato being sliced or peeled without being washed ifrst, or just bit into without washing would be my guess.
Producers do rinse their harvest with chlorinated water to remove most of the harmful bacteria, but enough can be left to make you sick. If the skin of a tomato is punctured when the fruit is picked from the vine or when presliced for sale in a supermarket or restaurant, then bacteria get inside, and no amount of washing will make it safe to eat. This is partly why on-the-vine tomatoes have been exempt from this most recent salmonella scare.
It gets there because the NEWS BIMBO said it does!
Thanks, I never could figure out why the on-the-vine ones were considered safe, but that makes sense.
In more ways than one.
Yes it is according to what I just read on my local rag's latest headlines section:
Government inspectors have found the same salmonella strain responsible for a nationwide food-poisoning outbreak in a Mexican-grown jalapeno in a Texas plant, prompting a new warning for consumers to avoid eating fresh jalapenos.
The theory is that salmonella infected water can be absorbed into the plant. Of course, it’s never been proven, kinda like global warming.
However unproven theories are a great way for creating global monopolies. Tomato farmers are being told by the food production dictators to create ‘buffer zones’ of bare soil to discourage animals like salmonella carrying frogs from hopping into the fields. If you are a small farmer this will certainly reduce the arable area of your farm and lower your yields. Only the biggest producers can survive the luxury of removing land from production like that. If you are a small farmer, think what it would do to your farm to have to block any living thing from entering your fields in the name of ‘food safety’. What kind of farm is so sterile that no creature can enter a field? What kind of farmer can afford to, or should stoop to poisoning animals in the natural habitat (see what has happened to California row crop farms that produce lettuce, spinach etc)or nets to stop birds and now ‘zones’ to stop frogs?
The funny thing is the water dictators want you to plant grass around you fields to filter any water that runs off them. So does that mean a farmer has to have his filtering strip, and his ‘buffer zone’ surrounding every field? How much of a field will be left after all that?
As with spinach, the ultimate goal of the food production dictators is to have the farmers bear all the cost of the e coli and salmonella contamination, and leave the packers and sellers out of it(when in most cases they are the culprits). They are being effectively told to sterilize the environment on their farms by blocking any living thing, like frogs, birds and mammals from entering their fields. It is ridiculous and against nature, but there you have it.
Drink up, global warming is going to kill us all anyway.
You would think then if this were true, that home victory gardens would be the most contaminated.
When you think of our food supply, it is clean. On the other hand, more and more food is supplied from South America.
Now they’re saying that the tomatos weren’t the culprit to begin with.
I always by vine tomatos or at least try too.
‘On the vine’ tomatoes are grown in green houses. I was under the impression that that is why they were exempt.
When the e coli was found in bagged spinach, the washing water at the packing plant was contaminated, and that is how the spinach was contaminated.
However, this didn’t stop the food dictators from forcing farmers to put pvc pipe bait traps every 30 feet or so around their fields to poison any little critters who might come along. We’re also waiting to see what the wholesale poisoning of the environment around a farm field does to the raptor populations who might eat the poisoned mice.
I wonder if some of the FDA employees got a bonus from some foreign government or grower to do this?
“......blocking any living thing, like frogs, birds and mammals from entering their fields”
hedge, do you have any thoughts on why we here in the SC mountains no longer have frogs in our landscapes? They disappeared about seven-eight years ago.
We are just about organic here so I know it’s not something we’re doing. And I keep hearing my neighbors say they no longer have the frogs. Ours were those little tiny tree frogs with the huge voices. Used to be hundreds here. Now I rarely see any.
Just thought you might have heard something about this.
Good point. I suspect as you point out, the culprit in the tomato comatimation is down stream not the farmers.
I'd like to find out what wholesale poinsoning like that is doing to our food?????
YUP
And not just Florida. Tomatoes are the #1 field crop in Virginia and one local grower says demand has been down 30%
I never served ANY fresh fruit or veg raw without a 20 minute soak in cold water with 50 ppm chlorine bleach solution. Cold tightens up the veg, water fills it back out, and the bleach kills surface spatter.
/johnny
My smart aleck reply would be that anything that gets ‘protected’ by the environmentalists around here usually ends up getting destroyed... the salmon population for example, and Big Sur for another.
I’ll look around and see what I can find about the frog population. Could it have anything to do with the water plans and practices they’ve put in place over the last decade or so? I wonder.
For example, the red legged frog uses small mammal burrows for their summer habitats, as well as agricultural drains and watering troughs. If farmers are baiting extensively to kill rodents near their fields, could they be helping to destroy the frog habitats as well?
"You can use a simple safe disinfecting spray that is more effective than any of the commercial cleaners in killing bacteria. As a bonus, it is inexpensive!
Susan Sumner, a food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, worked out the recipe for just such a sanitizing combo. All you need is three percent hydrogen peroxide, the same strength available at the drug store for gargling or disinfecting wounds, and plain white or apple cidar vinegar, and a pair of brand new clean sprayers, like the kind you use to dampen laundry before ironing. If you're cleaning vegetables or fruit, just spritz them well first with both the vinegar and the hydrogen peroxide, and then rinse them off under running water.
It doesn't matter which you use first - you can spray with the vinegar then the hydrogen peroxide, or with the hydrogen peroxide followed by the vinegar. You won't get any lingering taste of vinegar or hydrogen peroxide, and neither is toxic to you if a small amount remains on the produce.
As a bonus: The paired sprays work exceptionally well in sanitizing counters and other food preparation surfaces -- including wood cutting boards.
In tests run at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, pairing the two mists killed virtually all Salmonella, Shigella, or E. coli bacteria on heavily contaminated food and surfaces when used in this fashion, making this spray combination more effective at killing these potentially lethal bacteria than chlorine bleach or any commercially available kitchen cleaner. "
/johnny
That is right. I bet the tomato farmers are furious. Rightly or wrongly I know I quit buying tomatoes even though they kept saying certain ones were safe. In my mind it tainted all of them. And frankly, I am still not buying spinach or hamburger anywhere near like I used to. Intellectually I know that is stupid but I’m operating with my gut feeling and evidently once something is condemned in the media I get turned on it.
Just this morning I picked chiles, jalapenos, tabascos, serranos, and bell peppers from my garden. I also have all the tomatos we can eat and have been giving them to the neighbors left and right. Mexico can keeps its feces infected veggies.
You've got that right.
.
You can nuke the peppers too
That will kill E. Coli
- Peppers are growing well here now
Someday you will get to eat some!! Maybe you have had the peppers but are still waiting on tomatos.
There was a good article in our newspaper by a woman who planted ONE pepper bush in her garden. She said it produced and spread and spread until she had so many she was giving them away by the bucket!
My garden is late this year, so my tomatoes are not yet ripe although there are a bunch of 'em. I planted 53 and lost 4 of them right after transplant. In a few weeks I'll be busy making tomatoe sauce and such so that we can enjoy it until next year's garden.
You're right ... Mexico can eat their own veggies.
Thanks for the post. Unfortunately, you still have to scrub the food to remove any pesticides, but it’s wonderful to have a non-toxic way to disinfect vegetables.
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