E. Coli in Your Salad? Just Nuke It!

by Kirsten Weiblen, January 2007

For three years now my family has been enjoying fresh produce from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program at Arnold's Highlander Farm in Augusta, WV. This has taken a bit of adjustment in my cooking habits, because every Friday, May through October, I receive a bushel of fresh vegetables. I usually have some idea of what will be coming, but the crop is weather-dependent, and there is usually a great abundance of it. I have honed my freezing and canning skills over the years, and although I work full-time, it's not as time-consuming as it sounds. Having lots of quart jars of tomato sauce flavored with either basil or hot peppers all winter long is a great incentive.

There is also the seasonal nature of things. I enjoy the first greens and asparagus in May, the summer vegetables for ratatouille and tomato sandwiches from July through September, and greens again with winter squash in October. Then there are the strawberries in June: small, but so much sweeter than the ones in the grocery store.

As of late, this country has been having some serious problems with fresh produce in fast-food restaurants and grocery stores. Salmonella and E. coli have sickened hundreds of people this fall. Despite this, I was disturbed to read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine supporting irradiation of fresh produce as a remedy to the outbreaks (content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/19/1952). The author grew up in a rural area and knows something of the healthy products that a strong local agricultural base can yield, yet instead of advocating for more local food production, he embraces the overlaying of even more technology. Irradiation would not necessarily kill the hepatitis A virus that sickened people eating green onions at Chi-Chi's in 2003. Bacteria may also become resistant to irradiation just as they have become resistant to antibiotics.

Right now we have a centralized food production system which greatly increases the probability of multi-state and even multi-country contamination of food. This occurred first with beef and poultry. Irradiation seems to have only partially solved that problem, but now it is happening with produce. Where will it end? Worse, what if someday it is illegal to sell produce that hasn't been irradiated? This happened with the pasteurization of milk. For both good and bad reasons, raw milk is no longer legal or readily available for sale in most states – even right off the farm.

The adverse human health aspects of our food production model are just now coming to light. The environmental and social downsides have been evident for some time. Think of migrant workers, manure lagoons and the recent Swift meatpacking plant debacle. My suggestion for what it's worth is to look around, find local food, and embrace it. Or, just grow some of your own.

Start small, stay local, eat seasonally. To find a CSA program or farmers' market near you, go to localharvest.org.