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Subscribe to RSSU.S. health officials say the number of people sickened with the strain of salmonella linked to cantaloupe from an Indiana farm has grown to 204 in 22 states.
At least 78 people have been hospitalized as a result of the infection caused by salmonella Typhimurium, and two deaths have been reported in Kentucky. Here's a list of the number of ill people identified by state, according to the Centers for Disease Control:
Alabama (13), Arkansas (5), California (2), Florida (1), Georgia (4), Illinois (24), Indiana (22), Iowa (8), Kentucky (63), Massachusetts (2), Michigan (6), Minnesota (5), Mississippi (5), Missouri (13), New Jersey (2), North Carolina (5), Ohio (5), Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (8), Texas (2), and Wisconsin (4).
Regulatory agencies and public health officials at the federal, local and state levels believe the illness outbreak to be linked to cantaloupe from Chamberlain Farms Produce, Inc. of Owensville, Ind. On Aug. 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a recall of cantaloupes from Chamberlain Farms. The melons had been shipped to Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin, according to available records.
If you currently have cantaloupe at home, check to make sure it didn't come from Chamberlain Farms -- many melons have a sticker on them that lets you know where they were grown. No sticker? As the CDC advises, "When in doubt, throw it out."
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How DO you get food poisoning from a melon? Is it from not washing the outside of the fruit before cutting?
Yes
yes
I think the problem is systemic, meaning the fruit or vegetable drinks in water that is contaminated so the inside of the melon carries the bacteria, not the outside.
To answer the question, yes; either that, or just not adequately washing. Contamination can happen in a number of ways, but in cases like this it's from the soil (could be from fertilizer. Or even insect activity, or handlers, or the water the cantaloupes are sprayed with before consumers buy them). Cantaloupe has a rind with the deep pits and ridges in it that can be really hard to clean properly, and it's recommended to wash them with brushes even (which also need to be sanitized afterwards - the domino effect...). The main way salmonella gets through to the fruit of the melon is when someone cuts it, and it transfers from the knife. Sometimes not cooling it to the right temperature helps it spread too.
All that aside, the only thing I had heard about salmonella in fruit recently was a few days ago: the mango salmonella outbreak in California that has sickened 70-some people. How sad to have all of this too. I guess it's really important; remember to thoroughly clean your fruits and vegetables!
No amount of washing will clean a cantalope. THE SKIN IS POROUS, AND AS YOU CUT THE MELON, THE SALMONELLA WILL BE CUT INTO THE MEAT OF THE MELON. When in doubt, throw it out, to be on the safe side.
last year it was from unclean water in the processing plant beling left standing
I would think so because melons have really thick skins.
Glad to see Oregon isn't on the list. I do love me cantaloupe :)
Damn, we just finished a cantaloupe: was a good one too!
Hermiston (by Ontario) melons are in the stores now, as are Kimberly Orchards (near John Day) fruit. Yummers! and local!
Proud to grow my own.
Wish I had a garden to grow my own....among other things :)
Yea, I do but didn't water well and am sharing with either squirrels or wabbits:D
Happened in CO last year, lysteria was culprit. Traced to filthy truck that wasn't cleaned properly, ruined farmer. So much for all those regulators inspecting everything instead of just looking at melon.
all those inspectors? there are hardly any inspectors left these days. only 1.5-2% of all food is ever able to be inspected, due to severe chronic underfunding of the USDA.
Maybe the military could do inspections, especially the post-Iraqi soldiers. Keep them in uniform and with paychecks.
I, am Just guessing. But do think. If they could be eaten safely. We should be told how to do that.
Lucky for me. I grow my own. And do not expect, to become sick, from eating them. Not everyone,
can do that. If I had to buy them. I would, try to purchase them, from local farms.
The Colorado outbreak was from just one farm who was not using accepted standards for cooling, washing/sanitizing, and shipping. He really was not part of the Rocky Ford Growers Association. Those have been coming in for a few weeks now, and I have no qualms about eating them. However, I still wash them and some recommend using water with a bit of bleach as a disinfectant.
cantaloupe has had bad records of easily getting germs contamination. it looks like the thick skin do not protect from the bacteria getting through. once these nasty bacterias reach the inside of the cantaloupe, it multiplies in millions acting like a petri dish gel. hypothetically, if this is the case, even if cantaloupes were personally grown, wash thoroughly, the risk remain with the cantaloupe meat by nature as host growth of deadly bacterias, as i said like a petri dish gel, where bacteria grows in millions faster than a bullet triggered from a weapon.
kentucky has the highest rate......another act from God on christain nutwings! and people look up the salmonella and you will see how it gets in foods. you all get on this internet but none of you know how to google or bing?
Love cantaloupe.. unfortunately, will not be eating it anymore. All the farmers just did it to themselves. Sick and tired of seeing Colorado Proud ads after the listeria outbreak last year -- it means nothing if Colorado farmers don't have good practices.. same for other states. If the regulators won't do their jobs, seems like eventually the melon growers assoc. should step in. Business is not regulating itself and the regulators are not doing their jobs either.
Dorothy, wake up .............. regulators not doing their job??? You have got to be kidding. REPUBLICANS are constantly pushing for LESS REGULATION of everything in America.
Where have you been????? ......... and all you can do is point your finger at the inspectors (regulators) who are woefully understaffed, overworked and stretched so thin that only a few inspect vast quantities of MELONS, beef, FRUITS, chicken, FISH, shipping crates from Chinal, blah blah blah.
I really do hope you open your eyes to the realities, ESPECIALLY if you are a Tea-Publican.
Probably no proof yet, but.... Less gov't inspections.... Less gov't inspectors.... Less oversight.... Less protection for consumers................................................
Isn't this the kind of crap the "belt tightening Tea-publicans" cause? Maybe we can start tracing the food born illnesses directly to the senators, congressmen and lobbyists who push constantly for LESS GOV'T WORKERS to do the work that is ESSENTIAL for public safety!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let's see now...... The population is growing...... More safe food is needed....... Less people to test it.
Tea-publicans could possibly be our own worst enemy. Who was it that said, "America will destroy itself from within. YEP......... could be!!!!
13dev - Very well said!
With Republican congress and the Tea-partiers growing evermore hostile, its a dangerous time to eat anyting coming from the local grocery. They continue to drive for less and less government oversight and leaving it all to voluntary producer inspections - and now we have it hundreds of sick consumers and a few deaths.
Most republicans do not want to gut USDA inspection programs, we want instead to eliminate or drastically curtail all forms of welfare.
Jeff, your Tea-Publican / Ree-Publican or whatever you guys "really are," go peddle your lying smack talk to the ill-informed Americans.
Your cover was blown a long time ago with well educated people in America. The gov't has been stripped from a once "effective" safety control system to a bunch of deregulated whipping boys............... compliments of the Republican Greed Machine............ delivered to the doorsteps of the Waltons, Kochs, blah blah blah.
Your party is nothing but a tool for the greedy ultra-rich sociopaths (narcissists). They will eventually bite YOU in the AZZ as well.
Rest assure, your actions will cost you a very heavy price$$$. One that most of you are not prepared to pay.
IF there is all this so called belt tightening going on, how come we are spending at a rate 4 times what were were doign 4 years ago? I don't see any belt tightening except for all the working class who are paying taxes to pay for everyone else to sit on their ass. Maybe some of them can become inspectors and get to work for their welfare checks.
you people act like this was done on purpose I am sure that it was not and the grower is very sorry for any of this to happen. it is unfortunate that not everyone takes care of as many people as the american farmer, and then is blamed and put out of business for simply growing food for everyone to enjoy.
Unfortunately, it happens. I don't blame the farmers. It's life.
Stay tuned kiddies, next week it will be avocados,grapes kiwi fruit and maybe blueberrys.
Did I miss any?
After all these years, we are now suddenly having problems with our food from salmonella. What has changed that has created this problem?
I have picked berries and fruits in fields and orchards and never got sick. Is it our food industry that is creating conditions for salmonella to become a problem?
With all the crap that is tainting our land, our water from the pesticides, fertilizers, freaking fossil fuel industry allowed to get away with murder all the time and Monsanto to deal with contaminating everything we eat and they're not even required to LABEL what they produce, who knws WHAT is in the food we eat anymore or how it is grown. We are all being systematicall poisoned by corporate raiders and big business and their lobbyists who fight to LET THEM by making laws to remove the regulations to protect US, the people from their crimminal behaviours. More public sector workers have been laid off under this administration then ever before while the media and propaganda has mastered the lie that more "big government has been created under this President" when in fact the exact OPPOSITE is true. The public sector has shed more jobs then at any time possible as record numbers of government jobs resulted in lay-offs and firings as a results of cuts at the state and local government AND federal level, EXCEPT the military of course, the highest among education, police and fire and public works positions...social workers, case managers, etc...cutbacks to FEMA funding and all discreationary spending saw the shedding of public sector employees and John Bohener's infamous statement when those jobs were cut: "So be it". Like they not were REAL jobs so it didn't matter how many were lost.
THIS will be our lives in a teahad America. NO consumer protections from the predatory banks, corporations, mortage lenders, credit card offers and other fraudulent loans. You will be "on your own" and if you don't what you're getting into and fall prey to the sleaze artists, "it's YOU'RE fault and YOU should HAVE known better so if you lose all you to one of them, tough luck on YOU".
Your comments about Monsanto is true. But the whole of mankind in America treat it like THE EMPERIOR AND HIS CLOTHES. India threw them out.
We have become the HUNTED now.
Our farms have become overly huge ("monopolies" of sorts) and super-mechanized, having bought out smaller farms that can't make it because the large and super-center grocery chains don't buy from the local farms - but from single sources/huge farms in vast quantities. The farmers cannot/do not personally inspect every part of the process and every acre of the hundreds of acres every day - if at all. Too rushed to harvest, clean, package and get all the product into the hands of the big buyers.
The big grocery chains and "super-centers" get their meat and produce in huge, bulk quantities (like everything else) and ship it all over the country via their distribution centers. (Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, etc.)So, your tomoatoes might come from thousands of miles away, despite the fact your local store maybe sits next door to a tomato grower. But the corporate buyers of the chain buy from single sources and don't allow their local stores to buy local. It is all about the profit margin, certainly not the quality or freshness of the product or your health.
It is sold "cheaper" to the consumer and is more "convenient" to the consumer to buy everything they need in a week/month from one single store -- from safety pins to furniture to produce and meat, etc.
Thus we are losing our local smaller farms and ranchers who are able to give more time and care and attention to the entire farming process.
Meanwhile, BUY LOCAL produce and meats -- not from places like Wal-Mart. It is usually cheaper/same price and is for sure fresher and has been through less hands, processing and travelling. It simply means you have to research where to do this and spend a little (not much) more time when you do your shopping as you end up going to 2-3 places maybe rather than one store for everything.
And no matter where you get your produce, wash it well in a solution of vinegar or pure lemon juice and water before you store/use it.
Some of the recent salmonella has come from contaminated water the melons were irrigated with and no amount of washing would handle this. (the Colorado ones - not sure about the Indiana batches.) Once again, the "super-farms" that likely don't even notice something like this.
Please support your local farmers and ranchers, local Farmer's Markets, smaller "local" grocers for local produce and meat - and maybe we can save the rest of the small farms and ranches from going under or from being bought out by the "super-farms".
And support "Farm Aide" if you are able to.
Monsanto is owned by the rich in government. They "bought out or took over most of the farms and threw out farmers that were 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. farmers. And the reason??? They claimed the farmers "stole their genetically grown seeds. And where did the seeds come from??? From Monsanto trucks that continually drove past those farms. But they lost a case in Canada, cause that farmer fought them and won.
Why don't we require canteloupes to be commercially cleaned in some way before being sold? This is a large problem and seems to happen every year. If you don't want to do it then don't grow and sell the melons.
Grow my own, Minnesota midget's and ambrosia, in Michigan. Been a good year too. Go to your local farmers market. These are usually smaller farmers that don't have to take shortcuts the bigger conglomerate takes.
how the heck are there still people getting sick? melons don't last that long....they do rot. good grief.
Some farmers are placing plastic barriers on the topsoil to prevent water loss during drought. It keeps the soil moist in an "unnatural way." In some cases, this has resulted in perfect conditions for growth of Salmonella bacteria in the fields. Ask the Colorado farmers about 10-15 miles east of Lamar, Colo. The plastic was laying everywhere in those cantaloupe fields after harvest. It took huge trucks and trailers just to move it in and out of there.
The bacterial colonies and/or it's toxins coat the melons. As the melons are rough and porous it may take a heck of scrubbing to remove this coating depending on just how well attached it is. If NOT washed off, a knife cutting into the melon inoculates the fleshy "succulent part" that we eat with this bacterial / toxic soup.
Makes your mouth water doesn't it? Guess what?????????? There aren't enough gov't inspectors to catch all of this stuff.............. likely the compliments of Republican de-regulation....... and a little help from some of the Dems as well.
OH yeah, one more thing....... do you really think that companies, farmers, corporations are going to "SELF REGULATE???????? I Got some ocean front property to sell you in Denver.
Ironic how the FDA and other government agencies have all these regulations against small hobby farmers selling raw milk or home made food items(where you never hear of these diseases and bacteria) even throwing them in jail but it is fine for large agribusiness to kill us off.
I knew a woman who grew up on a ranch, and watched her brothers milk the cows, and saw the cows' fecal covered tails flipping around and their urine splashing into the pails, and her brothers never washed the cows' teats.
Says she, "I think pasteurized milk is a very good thing."
Ok! 204 sick, 2 die. 375,000,000 people in the US. How many got struck by lightning today? How many fell and died from brain injury? This isn't news.
just got over salmonella. horrible sickness. how i got it i don't know. maybe a restaurant worker didn't wash his hands.