the produce industry lost more than $200 million. I heard the warning about tomatoes from all sides. I had tomatoes in my fridge. I took them out and washed them a second time, and put them back. I ate them, too. I didn't get sick. Then a few days later the FDA suddenly decides that it's not tomatoes, it's peppers from Mexico that are contaminated. OK. So grocery stores toss all their produce and people get all freaked out about whatever they just ate....and the FDA tells us to avoid this and that kind of produce.
Here's what you should freak out about next: jalapenos, basil and cilantro. On Friday the FDA rep (Acheson) said that the agency has increased testing of Mexican produce and found more salmonella contamination, and different strains, on these three foods.
Now the AP is reporting that the peppers from Mexico had been contaminated for a while. In fact the AP says "Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies." But FDA officials insist that they didn't know about it. I guess they were busy lining their pockets with pharmaceutical money, because FDA records show that peppers and chilies were the top crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year. Since January 88 shipments were turned back, some 10% being contaminated. In the previous year 8% were contaminated. The USDA says 84% of all fresh peppers eaten in the US come from Mexico. Guess where most of our garlic comes from? China. Scared yet?
Bottom line is this: it's not safe to eat uncooked foods unless you wash them. How do you wash them? Some way that will kill most bacteria. Just rinsing with cold water doesn't do it. Soap helps get wax and dirt off, but it doesn't kill anything. My method is to fill the sink and soak all my produce in plain cold water for a few minutes first. That allows the veggies to absorb pure water instead of veggie wash chemicals. After the initial water soak I add a few shots of cheap vinegar and let it soak for a good while afterward. I pull apart the heads of lettuce and celery to make sure I rinse out the bases.
I read a study somewhere that compared several different ways of cleaning food, and vinegar works as well or better than expensive veggie wash products, so I adopted that practice. Bleach works better for killing things, but it tastes worse and damages the produce, and can damage you too if you ingest it. When I wash my veggies with vinegar, and rinse them again in cold water, they keep longer.
The scoop on the FDA came from here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92934299