Oy! What to do, what to do? All this fresh produce and all these threats of disease!
A good part of me wants to say in my most scornful New Yorker voice, "Take it easy! What do you expect? Produce grows in the Real Living World! It doesn't grow in a laboratory!
And to organic buffs, this same New Yorker voice wants to say, "So you think organic by virtue of being organic is safer? Give me a break!
My fertile organic tomato seedlings growing from organic seeds bought at Las Cañadas which will produce a local tomato variety.
There are GERMS and MICROBES and VIRUSES and all kinds of creepy crawly things in The Real Living World, more in fertile organic farms than in the sterile dirt that industrial growers sometimes use.
AND YOU DON'T REALLY WANT TO KILL THEM ALL OFF AS SOON AS YOU CAN BECAUSE YOU'LL KILL THE GOOD WITH THE BAD, AND THEY REALLY ARE NECESSARY TO LIVING THINGS WE LIKE. INCLUDING US. AND SOME OF THE STUFF THAT IS BAD FOR US IS GOOD FOR OTHER THINGS -- THERE'S A LOT OF INTERDEPENDENCE OUT THERE. BIODIVERSITY MATTERS.
This doesn't mean we should be encouraging the cultivation of salmonella and the like, or ignoring it. More on that in a minute.
There are a number of precautions that I take in buying, washing and using fresh produce: sensible precautions.
1. Try not to buy fruits and vegetables you intend to eat raw if they have breaks in the skin or if there is a break where the stem was.
2. Apparently, if you rinse warm tomatoes in cold water and leave them, if there are any breaks in the skin of the tomatoes, the temperature differential will cause the tomatoes to suck the water in where it might help breed salmonella. Therefore, don't wash them in cold water if you intend to leave them unused for any period of time.
3. Wash them in clean water. Running water is best if you're sure you're not just quickly passing the item under the faucet. If running water is not an option (for instance where you have to use boiled or bottled water) fill the bowl three times with clean water.
5. Here in Mexico, where we live, people sometimes use an anti-microbial soak for their produce. You could consider doing this. I have to say, we don't use it and so far we have really been quite healthy.However, our physician who is excellent recommends using it for strawberries and local plums -- fruit with very soft or virtually non-existent skins. We don't actually know anyone who uses the soak, but it is sold everywhere and the fact that we don't know anyone just means we don't see people washing their fruit. Of course, not using it may be like the man who jumped off the Empire State Building and said, well it hasn't hurt yet, as he passed the 29th floor on the way down. Our water, however, is relatively clean here, and I wash stuff just before I use it and I dry it off with a clean towel or paper towels. And I am very careful not to buy stuff with broken skins, etc.
6. If skins get bruised or broken after you've brought them home, remember stuff can fester in them in your own house. I either cook this stuff or cut off a healthy hunk of the fruit or vegetable around the broken part.
7. Here is an excellent government site on salmonella in general. It has more preventive hints as well as a lot of good information.
Now back to the production, transportation and sale of produce.
1.As I've said before, it has NEVER BEEN PROVEN THE SALMONELLA-BEARING TOMATOES CAME FROM MEXICO AND IT HAS NOT BEEN SHOWN THAT MEXICAN PRODUCERS ARE LACKING IN PROPER GROWING PRACTICES.
2. Salmonella can end up on fruit in any number of ways. In this excellent and concise story from Yahoo News, the dangerous adventures of produce are summed up nicely. As you can see, it is quite a journey. And as you can see, the process of trying to eliminate dangerous microbes can never be fail-safe.
3. We have to strike a balance: at some point the cost of efforts to avoid all contamination in the production and delivery process outweigh the benefits, not simply in money costs, but in terms of introducing measures that in themselves are harmful -- the point where the treatment is worse than the problem.
4. Take kids to see working farms. Take yourselves. Learn about where your food comes from by directly experiencing it! Hopefully, you will be more impressed with small operations than with big ones! Hopefully you will also learn that pesticide residues are hard to wash off and can also make you sick.