SALMONELLA BACTERIA IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

Salmonella bacteria are one of the best-known and most common causes of food poisoning. How serious a case of Salmonella food poisoning will be, depends largely on your age and health, as well as on which of the different Salmonella you get. If you are healthy, you may just have a few days of diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting and fever. Not that that isn’t pretty bad. But for young children, elderly people and those who have a weak immune system because of illness, Salmonella infection can be much more dangerous. It can result in hospitalization and even be fatal.

If you have read The Safe Food Handbook: How to Make Smart Choices about Risky Food, you won’t be surprised at where Salmonella can turn up. No, not just in your bagged salad greens or risky ready-to-eat foods or dairy products or peanut butter, but even in dried spices and herbs and in your pet’s food. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it, that a bacterium could happily live in products such as dried chili peppers. But yes, it happens. Salmonella bacteria are the ultimate survivors.

A recent five-day period in the United States proves this point. Findings of Salmonella bacteria have triggered large recalls of black peppers, chili peppers, dried basil and cilantro. Swanson Health Products, Frontier Natural Products Co-op, Sprouts Farmers Market, Lisy Corporation of Miami, and Fernandez Chile Company Inc. of Colorado, have all recalled various products around the United States. Grocery chains such as Whole Foods, King Soopers, Safeway, City Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, as well as various independent grocers, have been forced to remove the recalled items from their shelves and alert their customers. And who knows how many restaurants, food preparation facilities and private homes are still using them?

But we normally use just very little of such herbs and spice in our food, right? Is that enough to make us ill? Apparently yes. There have been some confirmed cases, though not yet for the current recalls. But in the large majority of instances, Salmonella illnesses are never connected to contaminated herbs or spices. Let’s face it, they are not the obvious suspect.

To your good health,

TSF

YET ANOTHER CILANTRO RECALL

I use a lot of fresh herbs in cooking. Most of them I grow myself (and share with our friends and neighbors). In fact, I have just returned from buying another French tarragon plant. But for some reason, I have a hard time growing cilantro, which I love to use in a number of dishes. That's really too bad, since it is contaminated on a regular basis. We have at least one recall a year in the U.S. As for example, now.

Buurma Farms, Inc. of Willard, Ohio, is voluntarily recalling 465 boxes of cilantro. The Cilantro was sold to distributors in Michigan on August 3, 2013. But some of the product was also shipped to retail stores in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. And who knows what prepared foods it was used in and where these ended up.

Of course, the bacterium that caused the contamination was our common culprit, Listeria monocytogenes. This tiny bacterium is pretty deadly. Beware pregnant women. Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths. It can also cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, or anyone with a weakened immune system.

On the other hand, some people don't get any symptoms at all, or, may just have short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Lucky you, if that is all you get.

Of course -- and this always annoys me -- the recall states that no illnesses related to this product have been reported so far. Great! Listeriosis has an extremely variable incubation period (time between being exposed and developing symptoms). It can range from 3 to 70 day - some say even 90 days. However, symptoms usually appear within a month.

Do the math. If you bought the contaminated cilantro when it arrived at the store - let's say August 5 or probably, considerably later, and used it immediately, you may not get ill until early September. Maybe even October or November.

Enjoy your cilantro, but you may be wise to cook it lightly first if you are in a high risk group. And avoid fresh salsa when eating out, which I consider one of our riskiest foods (see my post for March 29, 2012 - "Salsa is one of the Riskiest Foods".

To your good health,

TSF

ARE SALAD GREENS UNHEALTHY?

It seems that every few months in the United States there is a recall of salad greens, usually packaged as ready-to-eat items in bags. Almost always, they have been grown and packaged in the Salinas Valley, California.

There was a recall of Organic Baby Spinach products by Taylor Farms Retail, Inc. of Salinas a few days ago. The suspect bacteria was (EHEC) Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli. Exactly two months earlier the same firm had to recall bagged Hearts of Romaine lettuce, because of a finding of Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. And seven months before that, Taylor Farms had to recall its bagged Organic Baby Spinach because it was potentially contaminated with Salmonella bacteria. E.coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella - all found in Taylor Farms bagged greens, just within 12 months!

But Taylor Farms is not the only Salinas company with repeat recalls for bagged greens. In 2012, as well as in 2011, River Ranch Fresh Foods, of Salinas, California had problems with its retail and foodservice bagged salads, because of contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. Huge recalls resulted. And, so it goes, one company after another having to hastily retrieve its bagged greens from market shelves...on and on, recalls every few months, most of them originating in Salinas.

Is Salina Valley deadly? Well, we're not sure. Certainly, one reason for all these recalls of Salinas Valley grown greens is that some 80 percent of the salad greens that are eaten in the United States are grown in this area. In fact, it has been called "the salad bowl" of the United States.

But yes, there have been reports of groundwater and surface water contamination in parts of the Salinas Valley. And it is not only just bacteria. There are also ongoing concerns about water contamination due to dangerous metals like arsenic, and by nitrates. What is causing all it?

In the case of bacteria, the origin is usually animal feces. Much of the arsenic comes from natural geologic sources, but some also from commercial fertilizers that contain arsenic. Ammonium nitrate fertilizer could also be adding nitrates to the water. Greens grown in this area can absorb such contaminants.

So, enjoy your "healthy" greens, and try not to think too much about what else is in them, apart from those great nutrients.

To your good health,

TSF

ANOTHER CILANTRO RECALL

As with grape tomatoes (see previous post), we seem to be having at least one recall of cilantro a year in the United States. So now, here's one for 2012.

Fresco Green Farms Inc. of Winchester, CA is recalling 1,643 cases of Cilantro harvested from July 18th 2012 to July 27th 2012, because of Salmonella bacteria. The cilantro was sold in stores in California and Minnesota beginning July 19, 2012 and likely sold or removed from sale before August 6, 2012. The cilantro did not have any labels or numbers. It was bunched and tied together with a brown rubber band. Each bunch has the following dimensions; 10 inches of length and 1 ¼ width. That just about describes every bunch of cilantro I have seen in California stores, except that some have blue rubber bands!

In case you have forgotten - according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and just about every other authority - Salmonella bacteria "can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis." In other words, not much fun.

To your good health,

TSF