Many in the food safety community believe that tomatoes are not responsible for the salmonella outbreak.
Nearly a month after the initial outbreak and the isolated tomatoes have been removed, people are still getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has tested 1,700 samples of tomatoes and found zero cases of salmonella. Zilch.
FDA food safety chief Dr. David Acheson said they will now test other produce:
Tomatoes aren’t off the hook. It’s just that there is clearly a need to think beyond tomatoes.
The recent twist in the story makes this earlier FDA statement that they’ll locate the source “in the next few days” comical.
What’s not funny is that the whole mess has cost the food industry about $100 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. And the warning could mean $250 million in losses for farmers and distributors.
Squandered money and a waste of food.
I’m not saying that the FDA has anything but the best intentions–to protect Americans’ health–nor that their job is easy. But they seemed to act with flimsy evidence. People got sick from eating Mexican food and tomatoes are a common ingredient in many Mexican dishes.
I can see how the FDA’s modus operandi might be justifiable. Yet coming on the heels of the largest ever beef recall that, even at the time, we knew was not about protecting Americans from affected meat, it seems like the FDA has developed a quick trigger finger.
What’s your take? Is this approach justifiable if lives are at stake? (I should add that nobody has died from this salmonella outbreak.)
8 Comments
I kind of feel, that organizations tend to jump the gun, and react before thinking, so they blame tomatoes and then what’s next – there is always such a rush to solve everything – so money ends up wasted.
love your website, have been reading for a while now. small note about this post– i think the times article says 1700 samples of tomato have been tested, not 1700 varieties of tomato. if only biodiversity like that existed in the U.S. 🙂
Emmybee,
Thanks for noticing that mistake! I’ve made the correction…and am refunding the check from that slick-talking tomato lobbyist.
If you speak French: here is an interesting article about food waste, non-profit organisations’ ideas to fetch it and create off-market circuits to bring this food to a second life.
If you want, I might translate it for the blog.
You should add a section on your blog about packaging waste and the role of pre-cooked and over-packaged (for business purposes) food in this waste. This has lots of impact on your garbage weight, which must be reduced too !
Sorry if this hasn’t much to deal with the tomatoes issue !
Bonjour Bastien,
With apologies to Madame Benson and the rest of the French Department, I’m not able to get much out of the article. I’d love it if you could translate it! It wouldn’t have to be word for word…
I’m with you on the packaging waste, but I generally leave that issue for those passionate about it.
It’s scary to think how easily that agency can shut down an entire industry. Tomato farmers are going to have a heck of a time here not to mention all of those red-guys that are in the trash as a result. The very idea that all of this food has been tossed as a “precaution” bothers me a lot.
If they had a case and a tomato with salmonella then I get it. But without it, it’s sad.
Eating Mexican food with chicken in it, perhaps? That would seem a more likely source of salmonella to me…
“People got sick from eating Mexican food and tomatoes are a common ingredient in many Mexican dishes.”
Yeah, well not as common as cheese. As someone who doesn’t eat cheese I’m constantly having to specify “no cheese” when ordering Mexican food. It turns up everywhere. If only tomatoes were as ubiquitous.