by frog
The United States has just been battling a bizarre outbreak of salmonella poisoning. 167 people in 17 states have fallen ill from salmonella, 23 have gone to hospital and one has died. And the culprit is tomatoes; specifically out of season tomatoes that have travelled thousands of miles from their farm to final resting place in an all-American salad or hamburger. As you can see from the cover of the New York Post earlier this week, all is not well in Gotham City:
The LA Times notes:
Initially confined mostly to Texas and New Mexico, the federal recall of the tainted produce went national over the weekend, and supermarkets across the country, including those in L.A., have removed the three suspect varieties from their shelves. On Monday, McDonald’s stopped adding a slice of tomato to hamburgers served in America, and the Los Angeles Unified School District “indefinitely suspended” serving uncooked tomatoes in its cafeterias.
But the most interesting part of the infectious tomato story is told in the rest of the LA Times article, which asks why are Americans being poisoned by tomatoes in June, months after tomato season:
For one thing, tomatoes and tree fruit grown and shipped in this fashion seldom come even remotely close to tasting the way a tomato or a peach is supposed to taste. More important for the purposes of this discussion, the same marvel of efficiency that makes it possible to pick a tomato in Guatemala and sell it fresh in a market in Bangor, Maine, a few days later creates a system that’s just as good at distributing disease as it is produce.
It’s worth reading the whole article. While you can’t blame food poisoning on out of season foods with many miles under their belt, this scare is another symptom that our food system as whole is not as healthy or as effective as it could be if we were more locally self sufficient.
Photo Credit: Andrew Baron
Published in Health & Wellbeing by frog on Fri, June 13th, 2008
Tags: Food, salmonella, tomatoes, United States
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
It’s worth looking at how our own food handling system compares to that in the US. I looked at the NZFSA web site this morning after I read that story and it looked difficult to work out just how imported foods are handled or monitored from compliance. Ido know local Asian supermarkets in Auckland are stacked high with goods that do not meet our labelling laws. Many items don’t have English on them at all, never mind product information.
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So a rare food scare event – out of the enormous volume of food consumed everywhere – means what, exactly?
And what makes you think local food is going to make us immune to such problems?
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When the farmer knows the customer, or at least shares the same city/region, the duty of care will always be greater.
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Really? New Zealand has the highest rates of Campylobacter food poisoning in the developed world.
greens.org.nz/food-revolution/diseasefree.asp
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Absolutely BP, and we’ve been fighting to clean that up for years. You should join our campaign! Unfortunately, there are those who confuse regulations aimed at safety with those assumed to be infringing “freedoms”. That conflation is costing us all dearly.
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But it demonstrates that local does not equal safe.
There is much xenophobia underlying this reporting. Import = bad, local = good. If the food isn’t safe, then it shouldn’t be sold at all, regardless of source.
And then we have the protectionist/food miles/oil/warming angles to further confuse matters…..
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BTW: I agree with you about the safety aspect of local poultry, and battery hens.
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Having caught salmonella from chicken in Hong Kong 20 years ago, I feel sorry for the victims. I was very ill for 3 months (at least antibiotics provide a rapid recovery from campyllobacter BP, although sa you say NZ’s rates of that infection continue to remain scandalous!)
But salmonella from tomatoes??? I can only assume birds shat on them at some stage, and inadequate food hygiene then resulted in unwitting McD’s customers consuming the bacillus.
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There is a current ban on the export of our tomatoes to Australia – because of food safety concerns – tomatoes are still sold locally.
Food safety is not a matter of travel but of trust in the food regulation at the source.
What we have here is an excuse for prejudice against imported food – when without imported food (imported or the seed then grown locally) humanity would not have progressed out of a hunter gather state.
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Australian supermarkets usually sell produce grown in Australia, there’s not much from New Zealand available.
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Grow your own, then if it poisons you you can only blame the grower.
Here is a hint, do not plant onion beds close to daffodills!
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And don’t plant anything next to fennel – not for safety reasons, but becasue fennel inhibits the growth of almost anything else planted nearby. As I learned with my garden I planted last year at my new house.
Tomatos and basil are good companions though. And garlic is great for deterring pestilent insects from anything planted nearby.
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There is poison on this thread and it’s called thehairyarmpit !!!
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I suggest we all read Polan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (ignoring his first few chapters which buy into the idea that Agriculture must be subsidised in modern economies – we have had friendly chats about that.) – and then his most recent excellent short text “In Defense of Food” in which he attacks the cult of the nutritionists – with good reason, and defends traditional diets and traditional approaches to food.
I am thinking of teaming up with say Joel Kotkin, a US colleague, to write a genuine healthy food manifesto for modern living. One of my challenges to Smart Growth theories is that they are so besotted with false notions about transport that theyare in league with the industrial food “nutritionists” who have actually caused most of the problems they rail against. How can one garden properly in a five story apartment block? Instead of focusing on new urbanism how about focusing on old diets? Low density residential development promotes biodiversity, home gardening, is adaptable, and is more energy efficient in every way – including transport.
THis is surely New Zealand’s heritage. Suburban housing has the smallest carbon footprint and with today’s technology can easily collect its own water and treat its own sewage and the irrigation fields can be used to grow wild planst and funghi etc as Polan advocates should be a part of our diet. I certainly enjoy collecting and eating mushrooms and other funghi around here, and the watercress and the roadside blackberries.
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Oh well now we have our growers using unlawful sprays on the stuff we are eating.
Who knows what kind of excrement is in that lot.
If there is a buck in it, who the hell cares if it knocks a few people off somewhere down the line; seems to be the attitude of some growers.
Bird shit I just might survive if my immune system is not on the blink; but illegal imported bug spray is a whole new ball game.:-\
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I am more worried about the latest revelation that growers, ( for god knows how long) have been soaking the food we eat in illegally imported bug spray.
I might survive some bird shit if my immune system is up to scratch but illegal chemicals is a whole new ballgame.
What people will do for a buck can be deadly to others but they obviously don’t give a damn.
Another good reason to grow your own.
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I am more worried about the latest revelation that there are growers using imported illegal sprays on the food we eat.
I might survive a bit of bird shyte if my immune system is up to scratch but dangerous bug spray is a whole new ball game.
There seem to be growers who don’t give a tinkers cuss if they knock off half the population somewhere down the line.
Gimme the bucks now! is the catch cry for so many.:-)
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Owen, I don’t know much about your smart growth work, but I do know that your comment “wild planst and funghi etc as Polan advocates should be a part of our diet.” is a tad misleading, as Pollan thought we should ‘connect with the land’ every now and then, but to do so often was nothing more than a fantasy.
Brill book though
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I also accept that it’s hard to garden in an apartment block – how do you reconcile your railing against all that with the increased cost of individual transportation? Would seem to be making suburbia more and more costly, so much so that a vege garden isn’t going to make much difference to one’s finances.
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>>When the farmer knows the customer, or at least shares the same city/region, the duty of care will always be greater.
See the news tonight? Local food producers allegedly using dodgy, cheap chemicals to grow food.
As I’ve said all along, safety is the issue, not origin.
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I don’t have any more trust in the capitalists down the road than the capitalists in China as far as the safety of food production goes. However, it’s much easier for me to find out what dodgy chemicals are being used by somebody growing tomatoes down the road is using than it is to find out what is used by somebody growing tomatoes in Yunnan Province.
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Stephen, a part of your diet can be a very small part, although through much of summer Jenny would come home from walking the dog with enough blackberries to make a jar of jam that morning and we still have numerous jars in the pantry.
I also picked more boletus mushrooms from the nearby pine forest than we could eat and distributed to our friends and neighbours. And we had watercress salad with our frittata last night.
The point is that I would now design my small park subdivisions so that the sewage wastewater fertilized the tree and large plant and native bush area and the managed stormwater would irrigate a native and wild plant area within easy reach of the lots.
the olive groves as always would provide enough oil for everyone for the year – top quality that is.
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I would say that safety through appropriate regulation is the issue, not necessarily the origin. There is a story about the very under resourced US FDA at Business Week (http://tinyurl.com/52orqx) which would seem to deal with this thread…
Yech!
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The current fuel prices will have little impact on the choice of transport of most New Zealanders because so few are in areas where public transport is viable.
They will plan better and reduce the size of their cars but remember we are now paying for petrol what Europeans have been paying for decades and their driving patterns and car ownership has been trending towards the US model all that time.
Since about 1998 work related trips have been the minority everywhere in NZ and only a tiny percentage of those work related trips are focused on the CBD.
I walk twenty metres to my office, and many will respond to high fuel prices by working from home as I do, or by telecommuting as many others do.
Cars will continue to make huge efficiency gains and computer controlled cars which can extract their energy from electric cables under the road bed will hugely increase the efficiency of existing road lanes. These are already being trialled. Given that public transport is less fuel efficient that current private motor cars why would we be encouraging people to ride on buses and trains except where they pay their way?
Low density is the key to real sustainability because it promotes biodiversity, and mainly adaptability. I retrofitted solar water heating to my current cottage – try that in an apartment. And I have room for added buildings such as two sheds, and a chook house and of course a decent wetland.
I can easily extend the kitchen and add another window seat etc. Light timber frame is the ideal construction in our climate and for our way of life.
I suggest you might like to read my “base paper” on alternatives to Smart Growth” at item eleven on:
http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/index.php/issues/43-smart-growth
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Sam
But it shouldn’t be up to the consumer to “find out” about chemical usage, as regardless of origin, that’s not going to be workable.
It should be up to the supply chain and governance to ensure safety. Compulsory origin labeling does not do this, but safety has always been implied by the arguments for it i.e. local = good, imported = bad.
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What are you talking about here Owen:
“While there is some satisfaction in saying “I told you so? regarding the impact of Smart
Growth on house prices and the whole economy, I have to concede that my arguments fell on
deaf ears for most of the last ten years. In recent times I have had to ask why Smart Growth
carried the day for so long.”
I presume you mean smart growth played a part in house price rises because (reading various commentaries) credit expansion has been given the lions share of the credit for house price increases (plus immigration)?.
http://www.rmla.org.nz/publications_2006/Owen%20McShane.pdf
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Maybe so, but the Europeans have had *generally* had plenty of public transport at the same time, as well as higher incomes. I don’t think a whole lot of suburb building will be too popular for people dependent on cars. Of course at the same time, NZ needs accommodation.
Current fuel prices will have little impact on people’s choice of transport, precisely because they have *no* choice! One would think the painful impact of rising fuel prices could be mitigated by better/wider public transport systems NOW, rather than waiting for electric cars to begin mass production in the US in two years, by which time suburban dwellers will be hurting even MORE. Telecommuting and petroleum alternatives etc are all well and good, but not a viable option for many people, yet.
Your subdivisions sound lovely, but fairly petroleum intensive. Same as our food system – cheap, but as Mr Pollan says: “swimming on a sinking sea of petroleum”. Solutions will come, but I think there will be a fairly painful transition period as we wean ourselves off the black stuff…
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Though I’m sure these comments of mine are nothing new to you…perhaps you need a FAQ on your website.
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“But it shouldn’t be up to the consumer to “find out? about chemical usage, as regardless of origin, that’s not going to be workable.
It should be up to the supply chain and governance to ensure safety. ”
Yes, but it often is the consumer that ends up having to do the job since nobody else seems to be trustworthy. We sure as hell can’t trust the Chinese government to ensure that their farmer’s produce is up to standard given their propensity for lying through their teeth and making damn sure that nobody is allowed to poke around and dig up nasty facts, can we?
“There is much xenophobia underlying this reporting. Import = bad, local = good.”
Seems a bit silly to be throwing accusations of xenophobia into this debate, actually I suspect those who do so don’t really believe it is a factor just that it’s a handy stick to belabour one’s opponents with. It’s as silly as if I were to label those who champion imported goods as being “anti-New Zealand”.
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>>propensity for lying through their teeth
A condition that only affects the Chinese, of course, but never New Zealanders
If any group produces dangerous food, then apply controls until the food is safe. This applies as much to imports as it does to the organic farm down the road.
Careful not to load them with unnecessary costs, mind.
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“Careful not to load them with unnecessary costs, mind.”
I’m ‘only’ young, but in my experience all externally imposed costs are judged as unnecessary by those subject to them. Shouldn’t the controls be applied BEFORE the food is understood to be dangerous (so it doesn’t happen), rather than AFTER? i.e.
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jh asks “what I am talking about”.
In 1996 the Reserve Bank commissioned me to write a report to examine why house prices were”inflating” while all other sectors were coming under control.
I reported that an unexpected outcome since the introduction of the RMA was the adoption of Growth Management or Smart Growth policies from the US by the ARC and other local bodies and that these constrained the supply of land and hence were driving up house prices even though the cost of the housing itself was falling.
I predicted all that has happened since. The Banks are easy to blame (always have been) but they were lending against inflated assets and were encouraged to do so in the US by Federal agencies to help make housing “affordable”.
I suggest you read the latest Demographia survey of housing markets in the US Canada, the UK, Ireland and NZ and you will see that ALL the markets which had adopted Smart Growth (as cities) had unaffordable housing, while ALL the affordable housing markets had refused to do so. (These policies were originally designed to price blacks and hispanics out of white districts while allowing the live in apartments near railway stations – so there would be someone to do the housework etc. (See Thomas Sowell etc).
So if you want affordable housing release the land and reduce compliance costs and stop Local bodies using land development as a cash cow to feed their consultants. The Australian states are reducing huge amounts of land (they control the process there) so Australian land and house prices will soon come back. Immigration is only a problem if you do not release more land to meet demand. Houston, which has affordable housing and no zoning absorbed 130 households from New Orleans and the price increased by 0.5% and they ended up with more housing stock than they started with. You might also read “the Planning Penalty” by Randal O’Toole.
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“If any group produces dangerous food, then apply controls until the food is safe. This applies as much to imports as it does to the organic farm down the road. ”
Fair enough, so since we can apply cost-effective controls on the farm down the road, but can’t apply effective controls on food imported from China, we should stop importing from them then?
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“>>propensity for lying through their teeth
A condition that only affects the Chinese, of course, but never New Zealanders ”
Try reading to the end of the sentence – my point was that when New Zealanders lie through their teeth we have some methods for detecting this – you know, things like journalists, activists, whistle-blowers, even government officials that aren’t easily bribed or told to toe the party line. All those people that tend to languish in prisons under the Marxist regime you’re so keen to do deals with.
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