joshkelahan.com

Can anyone tell me how many food recalls there have been in the past year? How about the past two years?  I don’t know the exact number, but it must be a lot for me to get on my soapbox and write about it here.  The big one last summer if you recall, was the packaged lettuce/spinach.  I’m sure a lot of vegetarians had problems, but I don’t really thing the average American gave a rat’s ass.  This summer we have a recall on tomatoes.

Packaged meat, canned vegetables, pre-digested foods.  I can understand these things getting recalled; I mean they are hardly food to begin with.  But how the hell is there a recall on tomatoes?  The reported problem is that the tomatoes contain salmanila bacteria.  Doesn’t that come from raw meat?  How the hell did it get on tomatoes?  Here is the biggy, the news agencies are reporting that the tomatoes still on the vice are ok to eat, but not the ones not on the vine.  What?  I assume they are getting tainted somewhere between being picked and getting to the store.  But don’t the ones that come on the vine come from the same place?  Wouldn’t it make sense if they were all tainted?  While the lettuce problem last year was relativly small, I think you will see lasting re-procussions with this tomato issue.  Not immediatly, but down the road with tomato paste, sauce, etc.