Released: December 07, 2006

Growing peril on path from field to plate

Source: Marion Burros, New York Times (Free Registration)

Outbreaks of food-borne illness from produce have increased drastically as the way fruits and vegetables are grown, distributed and consumed has fundamentally changed.

Over the past couple of decades, Americans have doubled their consumption of fruits and vegetables, more and more of this produce is imported, and the number of plants where it is processed has shrunk.

“High centralization of production is great when everything goes right,” said Dr. Robert Tauxe, an epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “When something goes wrong, you have a big problem.”

A little bit of contaminated produce from one farm can infect tons of produce when it is all mixed together.

“Someone makes a small mistake, but someone chops up green onions and puts them in salsa and ships them off to Taco Bell, and you have exponentially magnified the problem,” said Carole Tucker Foreman, an agriculture official in the Carter administration, speaking hypothetically.

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