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Love your LOCAL tomatoes.
While I am wallowing in the many joys of fresh heirloom tomatoes grown here in California, my friends are living in fear of all things red and round. Why? Why, it's the national raw tomato scare, of course.
The Centers For Disease Control: Investigation of Outbreak of Infections Caused by Salmonella Saintpaul (cdc.gov/salmonella/saintpaul, updated 6/24/08) notes that now, 652 people in 34 states (plus DC) have been affected by this previously rare strain of salmonella that only affected THREE people last year. According to the current version of the CDC's hot topics page on this outbreak,The agency has been able to trace the pathway of some tomatoes from the point of purchase (e.g. supermarket) or consumption (e.g. restaurant) to each point on the distribution chain down to certain farms in Mexico and Florida.I live in a major tomato exporting state, so this only confused me: how the heck could other states be importing tomatoes in such volume that this obscure contamination incident could be so widespread? I mean, it's June! It's tomato time! Local tomatoes are available! Right?
Well, yes and no. I have mentioned that my local green grocer, just four blocks from my house, routinely stocks foods that are major exports of my home state, which they happened to have purchased from Chile. Nectarines are grown a few hours from my home, but this stand will carry nectarines from several thousand miles away much of the year. Why? Well, they are cheap due to the oddities of the world market and subsidized fuel. Economically, it makes no sense to me to fly a nectarine halfway around the world to me when they grow so close to home, but I am not a cheerleader of capitalism who finds ways to make all sorts of inefficient arrangements profitable. There are really lame, pale roma tomatoes available at this stand much of the year: they do not change from month to month, likely because they have been harvested weeks earlier and have spent ages on a truck on their way up from Mexico. As an alternative, the shop also offers hydroponic tomatoes from CANADA on the vine, which are lovely to look at and relatively flavorless.
So nothing about the worldwide travels of contaminated tomatoes should surprise me at this point.
I go to the farmers' markets or to Rainbow Grocery for REAL tomatoes.
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As an aside, the CDC's Saint Paul Salmonella FAQ notes that salmonella is a form of animal (poo) contamination; the CDC goes on to note that their experiments point to the tomatoes being infected through exposure to contaminated water. They observe that this sort of contamination mostly comes from "food animals," which means that if we were all vegans, this probably wouldn't have happened. That's just an aside.Labels: health, local, tomato love
posted by Arlene (Beth)6:56 AM
Lazy Saturday.
I'm Le Tired, so it is good that I have had a lazy weekend. I am supposed to be preparing several contest entries and a book mock-up over the next several weeks: it is exhausting just thinking about those projects. It is almost enough to inspire me to procrastinate by working on my Facebook page instead. But I've already got enough crap up there. Except for my biographical photo essay project, in which I will post a photo from each year of my life. I'm missing most of my teens right now, but I could still start scanning, I suppose.
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Ingleside trivia: The Coffee Lab (yelp.com), our newest local cafe, not only serves fabulous Ritual Coffee (ritualroasters.com), but also has very, very tasty sandwiches.
I had lunch there Saturday. I had a heavenly soy cappuccino, plus a "regular" (enormous) pepper jack cheese sandwich with lettuce, tomato, mustard, and olives on rosemary bread. The sandwich was toasted so that the cheese was pleasantly soft and the bread had a light crunch to it. It was great. I will go again.
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Weekend trivia from a Saturday morning spent on Valencia:
-Little Otsu (shop.littleotsu.com) not only has charming stationery and notebooks (which I knew), but also has a good selection of vegan cookbooks.
-Beadissimo (beadissimo.com), the wonderful bead shop that is the source of nearly all jewelry I have worn over the last several years, is closing. :-( They are having a 40% off closing sale until the stock is exhauster or Wednesday, whichever comes first. I'd bet the stock will be exhausted sooner. I bought several strands there, since there is no use in resisting until later. The sale brought out terrible "bead greed" in me: I confessed this, to the amusement of the woman beside me.
-Needles & Pens (www.needles-pens.com) has a much larger selection of zines than I had previously realized. And books by David Shrigley (davidshrigley.com).Labels: local
posted by Arlene (Beth)10:21 PM