Friday, June 27, 2008

Is The USDA Sure It Is Tomatoes?


I've read that my State, Guanajuato, has been cleared of raising the Salmonella Tomatoes. That is good and I'm sure the growers are glad to be able to send their tomatoes North again. But here is something that I don't understand and I've been reading and trying to find out how the USDA decided that tomatoes were the culprit.

It takes 12 hours to three or four days before the symptoms appear. Okay in 12 hours you might be able to remember everything you ate but three or four days later? Were tomatoes the only common item among all the cases of salmonella? Have they found crates of contaminated tomatoes?

I'm just saying I'm a little skeptical of the USDA. So I'd appreciate it if you could point me to a website that can answer my questions.

UPDATE: Ask and receive. Within a hour of this posting a friend wrote me and cited these two locations......Newsweek and the USDA .

Okay, the picture of the tomato is one given to me by my friend Joe from his terrace container garden. He called it a yellow or orange heirloom tomato. I went looking on the internet and found one that looked like it and the description described the way it looked and tasted.....Huge heirloom beefsteak tomato named for the Amana Colonies in Iowa. These organic tomato seeds produce big, regular leaf plants that produce above average amounts of beautiful light-orange, irregular shaped (fluted) heirloom tomatoes that can grow to 2 pounds or more, with an average diameter of 5 inches. Excellent sweet, almost tropical fruit flavors. Whether this is the exact tomato or not, it was a damn good tomato. Joe is giving me some seeds so hopefully I'll be growing my own soon.

5 comments:

1st Mate said...

Well, darn, I have this bag of beautiful tomatoes, already ate a couple and now I don't know whether to toss the rest or what.

Definitely growing your own is the way to go. Amazing that such big ones could be grown in containers.

Steve Cotton said...

I love heirloom tomatoes. The variety of tastes is enough to keep me paying premium prices. I need to start growing again. I have heard, though, that growing tomatoes around Manzanillo is a fool's mission. Correct?

Billie Mercer said...

1st mate, as I understand it the "tainted" tomatoes were in grocery stores in the USA a couple of weeks ago, so the fresh ones you are buying now probably are okay....but then I don't really know.

Steve, Maybe someone from Manzanillo can answer that question. All I know is that friends are growing wonderful tomatoes around here and the bushes keep producing into October.

Islagringo said...

We used to grow beautiful beefsteak heirloom tomatoes on our farm. Big yellow lemon ones too. They all had that delicious red tomatoe taste.

I tried growing tomatoes on la Isla. Didn't work. They never set fruit. My neighbors laughed and said that there are no bugs (bees) here to pollinate them. Darn.

Anonymous said...

WOW, what a beauty and I KNOW Joseph is thrilled. Sure wish we were there to taste some of them. The squirrels are winning the war at my house, I'm left with picking the pink ones and ripening them in the window. I have NOTHING like his. I'm so jealous! Debbie