Locally grown tomatoes are okay, instar. They are not part of the problem.

Well yeah, that was my point... i'm irked that some clueless talking head made it sound like tomatoes have suddenly developed a trans-kingdom communicable disease.

THere was nothing in the story to suggest where the pathogen came from (which would be recent exposure to raw feces or intestinal contents, pretty much), and then to go on and impugn the labors of untold numbers of local tomato growers...it just really kinks my hose!

lynnie b

Makes me angry too, Lynnie. I'd also like to know what 'fresh tomato season' has to do with tomatoes at the typical super market? You're likely to get the same tomatoes you got when it wasn't fresh tomato season, IOW, boxy, tasteless, breed-for- mechanical harvester jobs. I can't tell the difference there from one month to the next.

I've used chicken poop on my gardens now since I got chickens. What, twelve years? Fourteen? Before that, I used cow poop, or horse poop. I grow the whole nine yards, including things like head lettuce. Never got a food born illness yet from that garden. Manure managed appropriately has been used since before written history.

Contamination can occur anywhere in the production process and to me it just points out what England discovered during the scares of the last decade with cattle and several diseases.......they regretted losing the many smaller, local food processing facilities, abetoirs because if any of them had a problem, that made it a smaller issue.........easier to contain and easier to define a source.