Last week we were reminded how vulnerable our food supply is as we had an outbreak of Salmonella and eggs from two Iowa farms were blamed for the source. This led to a half billion eggs being recalled. We raise certified organic eggs on a very small scale and we hand wash all of them. The first thing I thought of when I heard about the number of eggs recalled was how would you like to have to wash all them eggs by hand? The problem is they still haven’t been able to prove that those egg farms were even the source of the contamination. According to Trent Loos on his radio show,inspectors have been on the farms ever since the outbreak was announced and have yet to find Salmonella in any of the eggs on the farms or in any of the eggs that have been returned to the farms.
They just assumed that the eggs were the culprits. He said this was the same thing that happened with the tomato scare a couple of years ago. They never did prove the source of the contamination but that didn’t help the tomato farmers that went out of business because they got the blame for it. Yet another argument for buy fresh, buy local and to know where your food is coming from. However even that doesn’t guarantee complete safety because you are dealing with a perishable product and people need to realize that.
You know I believe part of the problem could be with the American consumer. It seems like Americans have all become germaphobics. We have hand sanitizer everywhere. We even have one in our church foyer! I thought most people come to church clean on the outside hoping for a little help to get clean on the inside. You know the swine industry went through this obsession with germs a few years ago. I live a couple of miles west of what was at one time the largest family owned hog farm in Missouri and for a time when they cleaned out their hog barns they tried to almost sterilize them by washing with antibacterial soaps and making sure they were spotless before the next bunch of sows were put in. What they found was they were causing themselves more problems because they were killing off the good bacteria with the bad. They instead went to washing down with very hot water and maybe a mild soap, I’m not sure, and just making sure everything was nice and clean. They got along a lot better this way. Now I’m not saying we ought to throw safety to the wind but I do think you can take anything to excess so we just need to use a little common sense. We try to wash all the produce we can here at the farm, sometimes as many as three times. There are some things we don’t recommend washing until right before use such as fresh strawberries because they don’t last as long after they are washed. However when you are out in the patch picking them and you find that great big juicy one that is simply too inviting to leave the patch there are a couple of remedies for non-washing. One is “a little bid of dirt never hurt anyone” or “don’t worry it is clean dirt.” We modify the last one on our farm and say “don’t worry it is organic dirt.”
Still along these lines there is a word that I think should be taken out of the dictionary, it is accident! It seems like when anything happens anymore we think somebody has to pay. I heard a news story some time ago about an injury of a small child and by the account on the news you could tell it was just one of those times when one minute everything is alright and the next instant your world comes crashing down. Then at the end of the story they said there had not been a decision about filing charges and I thought how ridiculous! People it was an accident pure and simple. I have been in Agriculture my whole life and I have yet to meet someone with the attitude that oh well it might hurt a few people but it makes me money. Now there is already some woman suing these egg farms before the source of contamination has been found. She is not doing it to make the industry safer she just sees a fast buck Even if these farms were the source no one would feel worse than the owners and I am sure they would try everything they could to make sure it never happened again. Now if they were like the guy with the peanuts I believe it was that knew he had E-coli and still shipped out product he should be hung from a sour apple tree. But until then let’s remember that accident is still in the dictionary and they still do happen.
Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity.
