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Over the last few weeks we've been hearing about salmonella in our tomatoes. Here's some more news that's disconcerting. Apparently washing produce doesn't necessarily remove salmonella. According to Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer, if a tomato is warm and the water rolling over its surface is cold, then the fruit will absorb that water through any opening in the skin including the stem scar. If there is salmonella present on the tomato skin, it can enter the fleshy part of the tomato and the bacteria multiplies. Ms. Neergaard suggests we should wash our tomatoes, but not in cold water.
To guard against salmonella washed into the water in turn being sucked into the tomatoes, producers often keep wash-water 10 degrees warmer than the incoming crop, says food-safety scientist Keith Schneider of the University of Florida...
In fact, salmonella may be particularly hard to prevent in a variety of crops because birds, reptiles and amphibians carry it - the same reason children should wash their hands after handling a turtle, iguana or frog. The tomato industry's guidelines already advise surrounding fields with bare soil "buffer zones" to discourage reptiles.
This is the 14th salmonella outbreak associated with tomatoes since 1990.
The FDA has launched a Tomato Safety Initiative to learn more about how salmonella gets onto and inside tomatoes. Industry practices in Virginia and Florida (the origin of several previous outbreaks) are being studied and Florida's agriculture department will begin enforcing so-called "tomato best practices" on July 1st. The FDA is also asking for the authority to set preventative controls for growers and suppliers of foods linked to repeated outbreaks of serious illness, such as tomatoes and leafy greens. Congress hasn't yet acted on that request.
Ms. Neergaard doesn't mention groundwater contamination as an issue, as discussed in this New Scientist article:
The bacteria probably come from groundwater contaminated with animal faeces, he says. Once Salmonella gets on and into a tomato, the fruit acts like an incubator. Bacteria divide even in the cool temperatures of packing houses. "If you get a few samples into the internal tissue, then they will grow for sure."
At the moment there don't seem to be any clear cut answers as to how to prevent this from happening. But for now, wash your tomatoes in warm water.
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Over the weekend I read an interesting post by Eric Marcus at Vegan.com. He writes that it is very important for the vegan community to be accurate when talking to meat eaters about why they should go veggie. He is specifically talking about the environmental impacts of eating meat. We've certainly been on that bandwagon... we've written about eating vegan for the environment on a few occasions already. Marcus wrote his post after reading an article by John Harris in The Guardian which discusses how people are converting to vegetarianism as a way to end human hunger. The current food crisis is underlining how inefficient it is to use grain to feed animals, which in turn produces a smaller amount of meat for human consumption, instead of using that grain to feed humans directly. (Not to mention the issues of water usage, environmental pollution, land usage, etc. also directly related to feeding humans.)
However, what I learned in reading Marcus' post is that information (regarding the inefficiencies of producing meat versus producing vegetables), which we have also shared with people, is not entirely correct. Apparently raising chickens has the same impact to the environment as raising vegetables:
...I’d be surprised if producing a calorie of chicken requires greater land use than that required for a calorie of vegetables. I worry that if people buy into the argument laid out by Harris without understanding that chicken(s) are ridiculously efficient compared to other farmed animals, there will be a backlash against vegetarianism down the road when people realize that this is the case. We can’t afford to trick people into going veggie, and that means not only giving people pro-veggie info, but also the information we wish wasn’t true.
I do agree with Marcus. People should be given all the facts, and be allowed to make their own decisions. However, when you throw in the argument as to how horrifically chickens are raised, and this includes the "free range" chickens as well, there is no excuse to eat poultry or eggs, efficient or not. Of course, in this time and place, that is your choice. It is not a crime for chickens to be treated the way they are (even if it should be), nor is a crime to eat poultry or eggs.
But what I found most interesting in all this is the idea John Harris presented, that we vegans could use "human benefit" as an argument to eat vegan. It's happened to most of us at one time or another -- when discussing veganism with an omnivore, we've been challenged. Why do we care so much about animal rights when horrific things are being done to humans? There is a clearcut answer to that argument. 850 million people are starving. People are starving so that other people can eat meat. If we all ate vegan, far fewer people would starve.
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Click here to find more: quinoa recipes
I think I'm in love. Okay, I'm in love with Lane, but you all know that already. He's my husband after all. Today I'm going to talk about my "new" love. Quinoa
. It's not that I haven't had it before, I have. And I've enjoyed it in its plain iterations. But lately, I've been "playing" with it in a variety of different ways. Before this latest heat wave, I'd been making a few variations on quinoa for breakfast, I keep meaning to make it ahead of time and try it cold, but that hasn't happened yet. Just Friday night, I made a Quinoa salad for dinner based on Susan's recipe over at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.
Normally I try to follow a recipe exactly as written the first time I'm making it. Especially when it's something new. But it was hot, and I was tired and I didn't have all the ingredients on hand. So, I winged it a bit. I had the basic ingredients for the dressing -- I subbed lemon juice for lime, and mandarin orange juice (from the can of mandarin oranges) for orange juice. But everything else remained the same. The added ingredients were another story however.
Typically we either eat out on Friday's or we have some kind of mish mash thrown together dinner with whatever produce is left over from the week. (Saturday morning we religiously go to our local farmers market.) I had the corn, but no peppers (they never make it a whole week). So, instead of peppers I threw in steamed asparagus. That was kind of boring though and I had no other fresh produce on hand. To spice things up, I added mandarin orange slices, artichoke hearts, and some sun dried tomatoes. I'll probably skip the sun dried tomatoes next time, but this dish is a winner. And since quinoa has a really high protein content, it's one of those things I'll be making more of an effort to incorporate into our diet. Maybe I'll make it again tomorrow...
-- Cheers, Jane
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Jane and I have become addicted to Silk's Light Chocolate Milk. We probably go through a half gallon every week or two. It's our "dessert." Someone even suggested to us that it makes a great hot chocolate, although it's been too hot to try it since we heard the suggestion. We've tried a whole slew of the silk products over the last 11 months, this is our favorite. (I really like the Silk Mocha beverage too.)
So we were in Whole Foods recently and they had a private-brand Soy Chocolate Soymilk product. It was $3.69 for a ½-gallon container. We pay $3.50 for the Light Silk at Ralph's. (Yes, that is the name of one of our grocery chains... if you don't believe me, google it!) We decided it was time for a taste test. We brought both containers home with us, and today was the day.
The winner was the Silk Brand Light Chocolate Milk, by far. We poured a glass of each. The Silk product was darker and thicker than the Whole Foods - 365 brand. It also had a more chocolate-y taste than the 365 brand, and a better overall mouth-feel. And it also won in the nutritional category, at least for the things we look at, although that may not be fair as the Silk Chocolate Soymilk we consume is the "Light" chocolate milk.
The nutritional information stacks up as follows (The Silk Light Chocolate Soymilk // 365-Brand Chocolate Soymilk):
- 120 calories // 150 calories
- 1.5 grams of fat // 3.5 grams of fat
- 0 grams saturated fat // 0.5 grams saturated fat
- 22 grams carbohydrate // 24 grams carbohydrate
- 5 grams protein // 7 grams protein
- 100 mg sodium // 170 mg sodium
So, as far as I'm concerned the 365-brand is okay, but if you can get the Silk Light Chocolate Soymilk, it's a better product. Jane actually disliked the 365-brand and wouldn't have it again.
