Eat Local Tomatoes!
By Kira Hamman
From the Silver Lining department:
The Associated Press reports that, in the wake of the recent salmonella scare, consumers are turning to local farmers for their produce.
Consumers have become concerned about the safety of tomatoes and other vegetables grown far away and shipped thousands of miles and are opting instead for food grown locally. As one woman who began shopping at a local farmers’ market during the scare said, “you meet the people and you see where the [produce] is coming from.”
Amen.
According to the AP, 46% of Americans are concerned about contaminated produce. Furthermore, 77% of women (who, let’s face it, do most of the grocery shopping) are not “very confident” that the produce they buy is safe. But many people feel “a little safer doing the local farmers’ market.”
So is buying from local farmers safer?
Who knows? Probably, but there’s no data on that. What we do know is that buying locally grown tomatoes supports the local economy, uses less fossil fuel, and – the big one – gets you better tomatoes. So find a local market this week, and leave those grocery store tomatoes on the shelf!
August 7th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Local produce is safer because it does not come in contact with meat processing areas of mass production plants. I can’t remember the exact number off the top of my head but there are only a few processing plants that ALL food goes through before it goes on the commercial market. This is where most of the contamination occurs. More specifically, the strain of salmonella they are finding in produce is only found in the gut of cattle that have been force fed an inappropriate diet of processed corn in massive feed lots.*whew* Thank you Michael Pollan for the inspiration for that rant.
Grow your own food!!