How Does Salmonella Get In Your Tomato?

Gourmet Magazine has an article on the subject. Their conclusion.

The CSPI is far less sanguine. Since 2006, that consumer advocacy group has been urging the FDA to require that all farms that feed the public adhere to written food-safety plans.

Good luck. The FDA has consistently shown that it is more interested in protecting the interests of the agriculture industry than the health of American consumers. Note the confusing, back-assward way it issued its warning, listing 16 states and countries whose tomatoes were considered safe to eat, but omitting regions that were possibly unsafe. I’ll make the warning a little more consumer friendly: Avoid red round, plum, and Roma tomatoes (though those sold attached to the vine are okay) from Florida (unless they have a certificate from the state department of agriculture) and Mexico.

The current system, says the CSPI, is ineffective. “All consumers can do is cross their fingers and hope.”

Via Slashfood.

Update: From Slate.

the Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with regulating produce, might inspect a vegetable packing facility once a year, and the number of inspections is shrinking. In 1972, the FDA inspected 50,000 farms and plants. By 2006, that number had dwindled to 10,000. Meanwhile, having increasingly centralized packing plants means that crops from a single contaminated field can mingle with clean produce and be shipped across a wider swath of the country than ever before.

Deregulating themselves out of business.