Salmonella Outbreak

I have been watching with interest the news stories of the peanut salmonella outbreak. Officials now believe that the contamination occurred beginning in 2007. So, for the last two years products containing salmonella have made its way into major food manufacturers products in forty three states. Five hundred and one people have gotten sick and eleven have died. Stores in our area did not begin pulling products until two weeks ago when one local grocer pulled all their baked goods that had peanut butter in them. The list of potentially contaminated products continues to grow. Today it has been expanded to "peanut paste, peanut butter, dry and roasted peanuts, granulated peanuts used in chunky peanut butter and others. The recall previously covered only peanut butter and peanut paste dating from July 1, 2008." Last week we were assured us the peanut butter was safe. Now the FDA is suggesting that name brand peanut butters should be fine but that off brands might not be.
Questions about the safety of the United States food supply first made the mainstream news after 9/11. While we have not had any terrorist attacks on our food supply we have had concerns over mad cow disease, the potential for an avian flu pandemic and several salmonella outbreaks. Let us also not forgot the rat poison that infected animal foods or the lead that has been found in children's toys and clothing. The FDA is simply a large bureaucratic agency with to few inspectors and to many facilities to inspect. The food distribution in this country is a large and tangled web. Food travels thousand of miles before landing in a store for sale. It is brought from overseas, from countries where regulations and inspections don't even exist onto boats that will not even been checked when they arrive here. Tracing back where it came from is not an easy task. I can't imagine trying to trace back an ingredient, that has made its way into hundreds of individual food products all across the country.

I don't consider myself to be a greenie or an environmentalist but a large part of my attraction to the buy local movement is that you know where your food comes from. We buy our milk, meat, and eggs from a local dairy. I can walk into the barn and visit with the cows that produce my milk and will latter end up as hamburger. I don't worry about the animals being sickly or being polluted by hormones and chemicals in their feed. We grow a big garden in the summer and frequent farmers markets. When I purchase bread it is from a friend who makes it in her kitchen from wheat she has ground herself. When we want cookies, we make them. This is not one stop shopping at Walmart. It takes a little more time, a little more effort. It paid of when the recalls started, there was nothing in my pantry that caused me concern except for a small container of trail mix which we won't eat. The other benefit is that the simpler, the more basic the ingredients are that you start with the healthier they are and nowadays, the safer they are.