USA Tomato health scare

Subject: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 09:14 AM

Saw something on the Sky News that there was a major problem with tomatoes supplied from one part of the States. As far as I know, it has to do with Salmanella.
What caused it?
Anybody able to explain what has happened and how the Salmanella comes into it. Also, wouldn't washing the tomatoes avoid the illness, or is there something I am missing here.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 09:16 AM

Sorry, this was meant to be BS. Can a kindly elf please move it down below.
Thanks

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 09:49 AM

I've heard something about it too, but I don't understand it. Surely they're not saying that the very flesh of the tomato is contaminated?

On last night's news they said that cooking the tomato quickly kills the salmonella and that, of course, tomatoes on the vine and tomatoes in one's back yard are fine, as are cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes, the latter two by virtue of not being implicated in the current outbreak.

They said that the first indication of their being a problem came about in late April, which would mean that those tomatoes had come from Florida or Mexico. Nowhere else do we get tomatoes that early in the year.

But they also surmised that the problem is wider than that because of the many regions affected.

But back to the original thought: Surely the flesh is not contaminated?

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Polite Guest
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 09:56 AM

Dodgy Tomatoes

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:09 AM

Thanks for posting the link. It doesn't however explain whether the tomato is contaminated just on the surface skin or the flesh part.
It also doesn't say what steps (if any) can be taken to use the contaminated tomatoes if washed or cooked etc.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Becca72
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:27 AM

Nasty little buggers anyway. You couldn't pay me to eat one.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: bobad
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:41 AM

It's the ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:47 AM

What I read said washing them quite often does NOT get all of the salmonella AND it is esp. dangerous if there are any nicks or cuts anywhere on them as the salmonella would then infect the inner flesh. I also read this is true of carrots.

All fast food places here have stopped serving any fresh tomatoes and in one case, McDonalds, have indicated they don't know if they ever will, again. So far, they say the cherry ones and ones which come with the vine attached are safe and I've been eating them with no problems, but those are the kind we always buy. We are growing our own but they are not big enough or red enough, yet.

I read that salmonella comes from unsanitary conditions where a mixing of animal or human feces may be introduced into the water, etc. around the fruit.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:52 AM

Why would certain types be OK then? What distinguishes them from the infected ones?

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:54 AM

Y ERICA MARCUS | [e-mail]
June 11, 2008

Over the weekend, the FDA issued a warning to consumers to abstain from certain types of tomatoes due to an outbreak of salmonellosis, an infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella. Since April, there have been 167 reported cases of salmonellosis nationwide caused by Salmonella Saintpaul, an uncommon form of Salmonella. Twenty-three hospitalizations as well as one possibly related death have been reported.

Given the current Salmonella outbreak, is it still safe to eat tomatoes?

Yes, but only certain types. The Food and Drug Administration is currently tracking the source of the tomato-borne Salmonella infections, but has declared cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes and tomatoes sold on the vine as safe.

So what types of tomatoes are not safe?

How to protect your family Large round tomatoes (sometimes called beefsteaks) and the egg-shaped ones, (called plum tomatoes or Roma tomatoes) traditionally used in sauce.

What should I do with tomatoes I already have?

If they are of the unsafe types (see above), do not eat them. The market where you bought them might refund your money; otherwise, throw them out.

What if I plan to cook with them?

The FDA does not recommend cooking tomatoes to prevent illness from this outbreak; the types of tomatoes implicated in this outbreak should not be eaten, period.

Why are certain varieties safe? Is there something about their genetic makeup that makes them resistant?

No. It all has to do with where the tomato was grown. Certain states and countries specialize in specific types of tomatoes. Until the FDA can pinpoint exactly where the infection occurred, it is advising consumers to avoid the types of tomatoes grown in the areas that have not been ruled out.

So where are the contaminated tomatoes from?

For now, the FDA has issued a list of places whose tomatoes are safe for consumption. The list includes 19 states, including New York, California and Florida (which got the all-clear from the FDA late yesterday), and seven countries, including the Netherlands, Israel and Canada. Conspicuously absent from the list is one major source of tomatoes, Mexico.

What about local farm tomatoes?

Local tomato season is still at least a month away, so a local farm stand selling tomatoes probably got them elsewhere. Check to see that it wasn't Mexico. There is no cause to worry about a farm stand selling its own hydroponically grown tomatoes.

How would a tomato get infected with Salmonella?

The culprit is usually water: Crops come into contact with water when they are irrigated, fertilized, washed and processed. If that water came into contact with infected animal feces - not hard to imagine if livestock is being raised nearby - Salmonella can pass to crops.

Where does the name Salmonella come from?

The genus was named after American veterinary pathologist Daniel Elmer Salmon.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 11:45 AM

Very interesting Peace.

You can have a bit of salmonella
You can have a bit of salmonella
Ella ella eh eh eh
Tomato Salmonella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Tomato Salmonella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Tomato Salmonella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 12:13 PM

Locally grown tomatoes in the New Orleans area are called "Creole tomatoes," they are currently in season and available, and they're perfectly OK. Always a bit more expensive, and a whole lot tastier, than the tomatoes available at the supermarkets, trucked in from who-knows-where, different points of origin at different times of the year.

Of course, none of the fast-food outlets around here can buy their ingredients locally; their tomatoes come from the international marketplace and therefore the supply is currently suspect and they have to omit sliced tomatoes from all their burgers, etc. ~ even in this area, where a high-quality and uninfected supply is at hand.

I don't suppose that local franchisees will ever have the option to buy local produce; they have to accept what worldwide headquarters provides for them, which in this case is at least temporarily unusable.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 01:01 PM

So why is it Sal moe nel la, yet the fish is sa mawn? **bg**

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 03:07 PM

Sammon. Salmonella. Sammonella. Let's call the whole thing off.

My tomatoes in the yard are a long way off, but meanwhile, fresh round ones can be purchased at the grocery stores that carry the "on the vine" varieties.

It's BLT season when the yard tomatoes come in ripe. That's when the tomato is a crucial ingredient, but it must be local or home grown to taste right.

SRS

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: ClaireBear
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 03:23 PM

I believe my husband heard on our local Monterey Bay NPR affiliate (which serves the tomato-growing Salinas Valley) that when the stem is removed from the tomato, a porous area is exposed at the crown of the fruit where salmonella contamination can enter the flesh of the tomato via the water in which the harvested tomato is washed. Hence tomatoes on the vine are safe, as there is no exposed flesh.

As for cherry tomatoes, I dunno -- maybe the stem area is so tiny that there's not enough exposed area to allow significant contamination?

Claire

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 03:36 PM

I think that the cherry and grape tomatoes are OK not because of their size ~ it's just that the relatively-few areas where they are grown commercially are not on the list of localities where the contamination might have occurred.

SRS: "BLT season," huh? Are you familiar with the "kitchen sink sandwich"? Big juicy slices of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes on white bread, with nothing else on 'em except plenty of mayonnaise. So named because you have to eat 'em over the sink.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 03:49 PM

Water, and unclean handling, are the sources of the contamination. If your source is trustworthy, don't worry. Many of the tomatoes coming into our stores now are from local, small greenhouses, soon some will be from the local organic growers.
The mass-produced field tomatoes used by many fast food chains and sold cheaply (relatively)in the supermarket may be exposed to contamination at several points during packing and distribution, as well as in the field from water sources.

Washing fruit is never 100% proof against Salmonella, microscopic cracks and skin irregularities that can't be seen with the naked eye can harbor bacteria.

People often point, without reason, to imports from Mexico and elsewhere when they look for sources of comtamination. There is no difference in the growing and handling of mass market tomatoes or other produce, whether in Florida, California, Arizona, Texas, or Mexico.

Thorough cooking destroys the bacteria- and taste, vitamins, etc. as well, unfortunately.
(Eggs are a more frequent cause of the illness. Scalding the eggs in boiling water before use is a good method, since the bacteria are usually on the shell.)

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: GUEST,Moogle
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:18 AM

Is there any chance that ongoing genetic modification has made them more susceptible to picking up/carrying salmonella?
Before this idea is poo-pooed - why have we not had such cases before? We have been eating tomatoes of all varieties for hundreds of years and only now where genetically modified strains are becoming more and more available does this problem arise.

Take a moment and think about it. If we continually tamper with the genetic make up of the food we eat it is only going to be so long before disease and defects start to affect us.

GM crops may enable farmers to grow food where they couldn't before, or make them more drought tolerant or make the fruits bigger and more uniform, blahdy blahdy blah, but at what cost to the consumer - should we be tampering with nature so much?

You are what you eat.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:15 AM

We have had such outbreaks before, but we didn't have the communications to spread the news. Also such outbreaks were localized because foods weren't transported over great distances.

Gonna grow my own damned tomatoes again this year. Gonna grow something that doesn't taste like cardboard and have a skin that will stop artillery.

Then I'm gonna eat them with good bacon and home-grown lettuce on multi-grain bread, or maybe just with mayo in a sandwich. Or all alone, chilled, with just a touch of salt. Or in a salad with fresh basil, mozzerlla cheese, and a touch of olive oil.

Subject: Lyr Add: HOMEGROWN TOMATOES (Guy Clark)
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:28 AM

HOMEGROWN TOMATOES ~ Guy Clark

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden

Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one

Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with egss, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 10:32 AM

Damn near my favorite Guy Clark song!

I wait anxiously every summer for my home growns or at least the local farmer's market/roadside stand 'maters. From July through August I pig out on fresh Ohio corn and tomatoes.........ANd every year by September Karen is on the verge of divorcing me.

Spaw

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 10:36 AM

NOTHIN' like spaghetti sauce made with fresh tomatoes.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 11:04 AM

Is eating tomatoes better than having sex? :-)

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 12:30 PM

HE is a SICK MAN !!

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 12:44 PM

Based on a description of symptoms by a contemporary writer, Alexander the Great may have died of a Salmonella infection.
Prince Albert died (1861) of Salmonella poisoning.
In Victorian times, estimates are 50,000 cases per year.
In 1985, 16000 cases in six states were caused by contaminated milk from one Chicago dairy.
In 2002, 32,308 reported cases in 50 states (of course many unreported).
Salmonella strains are gaining in antibiotic resistance.
Optimum temperature for Salmonella growth is 98.6 F (body temperature).
Heating to 57-60 C (134-140 F) destroys the organisms.
A related species of Salmonella causes the much more deadly Typhoid Fever. This was a major cause of death in the Boer War.

A very detailed report on all types of Salmonella from Columbia University-
www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/g4158/presentations/2004/Salmonella.ppt

Salmonella has been with us for a long time. With mass-marketed foods, tracing the source takes careful detective work, and it may be months before the cause is found.
I remember, a few years back, Mexican strawberries were blamed in press reports. The actual cause was elsewhere, but by the time the report came out, the press had lost interest- so Mexican berries are still cited as the cause in blogs, etc.

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 12:53 PM

Like Rapaire, bacon and tomato sandwiches are a favorite of ours.
Good bread, sliced tomatoes, lean side bacon, old cheddar and toasted in buttered bread, and hang the calories!
We have had them from a local restaurant made Monte Cristo style- coated in beaten egg and grilled. Pure heaven!

(Of course only once in about two weeks- they are calorie-laden!)

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Melissa
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:53 PM

Wolf Apples?

Have I read that tomatoes are related to Nightshade?
Is my recent info on tomato plants cleaning the earth by processing the 'bad stuff' and filtering it into the fruit?

What happened in the movie "The Last Supper"? They ate their lovely crop of tomatoes while coming unhinged. I can't remember if it was supposed to be a psychological break down within the group or whether it was supposed to have something to do with the lye (or whatever they doused) under the tomato plants..

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 04:58 AM

Health experts say cooking tomatoes at at least 145 degrees for 15 seconds minimum will kill salmonella bacteria. I can't agree that cooking them for a long time kills flavor, though. A slow-cooked tomato sauce, using fresh tomatoes is one of the great pleasures of Italian cooking.

A health expert interviewed on the news was asked why cherry tomatoes are safe. She explained that none of the salmonela cases were traced to cherry tomatoes, thus they are not on the unsafe list. Other than that, there was no explanation of anything inheremt in cherry tomatoes that make them safer. Well, there's varying theories, so I'd be interedsted to know if other health officials/scientists have another explanation.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: USA Tomato health scare
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 10:35 PM

Grafting tomato "branches" onto Jimson weed is supposed to give you bigger tomatoes. And yes, they are close cousins. But don't do it, 'cause it could kill you deader'n Alexander the Great.

And yes, tomatoes are in the same family as Deadly Nightshade. Don't graft them onto that either.