About five years ago we stopped buying fruits and vegetables from super markets. We flirted with CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture coops) for awhile, but found that they limited choice too much. Now we're only doing locally grown produce bought from farm stands or at Reading Terminal Market (and only from specific merchants). We're lucky in that there is a good network of local producers here in Philadelphia and an increasingly wide selection of farmers markets.
I just got the following from
Fair Food on the present BIG SCARE!!
This week, American consumers have been overrun with a fear of salmonella from one of our favorite vegetables (or fruits for that matter)… tomatoes! The media are having a field day, parents are worried, and kids have another excuse to get out of eating their vegetables.
There is something strange about this situation, however. Salmonella does not naturally occur in or on tomatoes or other produce. It is an animal-borne bacteria, which can only be spread to produce or other food products through cross contamination, such as careless food handling. The centralized industrial food system allows enormous corporate farms to raise large numbers of animals on small amounts of land in confined conditions. Though no one knows exactly where or how this outbreak occurred, this is the ideal environment for spreading bacteria like salmonella. Within a system that encourages "efficiency" over food safety, products can be handled improperly, thus increasing the risk of a food-borne illness outbreak. Coupled with the inability to trace where all this corporate food originates, this system exacerbates the outbreaks. One instance of contamination can quickly impact 17 different states, as in our current situation! Panic often ensues, so even though PA and NJ growers have been ruled OUT as the culprits, they can still struggle to sell their crops.
Luckily, if you are shopping at the Farmstand, none of this will affect you. Supporting smaller sustainable farms encourages genetic diversity and humane conditions for workers and animals. Buying locally also minimizes the distance that food travels. Most importantly, we know where our tomatoes come from, how they are produced, and who handles them--the best way to prevent the spread of food-borne illness like salmonella and enjoy your favorite farm-fresh products. This week, red and green tomatoes from Green Meadow Farm and grape tomatoes from Paradise Organics can provide your tomato fix until July when we will be up to our elbows in heirlooms!
So, support your local farmer.
"If you like to look at farmland, you have to eat the landscape."