Tainted Tomatoes

I have copied and paste the news headlines in the US that should concern us too in this part of the world.Many outbreaks of foodborne diseases that were once contained within a small community may now spread like wild fire in global dimensions. The SARS outbreak is one example.
Food safety authorities all over the world have acknowledged that food safety must not only be tackled at the national level but also through closer linkages among food safety authorities at the international level.
In the US, there have been 13 outbreaks of salmonella in tomatoes since 1990, which puts the fruit on the list of high-risk foods that are prone to infection. But unlike the bagged spinach from the 2006 E. Coli scare, the tomatoes don't come with a traceable bar code. "When you're dealing with tomatoes, it is much, much more complex," explains Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's Associate Commissioner for Foods. The FDA's great tomato hunt has an ever-expanding list of suspects. A salmonella victim can point to the supermarket (or restaurant) that sold the offending fruit, but that store probably sources its tomatoes from several suppliers, each of which uses several distributors — and distributors buy from any number of growers.

Even if the FDA can pinpoint the source of the outbreak, it's hard for consumers to know where their tomatoes are grown. Certain imported foods are required to carry country-of-origin labels, but that doesn't apply to domestic produce. "I'm not aware of any tomato outbreak that was not domestic," says Acheson. There is no such thing as a mandatory state-of-origin label for food, and federal authorities have yet to create such a law. "Saying 'product of the U.S.' isn't necessarily going to confer safety," he says. Federal officials hunted for the source of a 16-state salmonella outbreak linked to three types of raw tomatoes, while the list of supermarkets and restaurants removing those varieties from shelves and dishes grew.

In Malaysia, the government has introduced the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) whereby the Certificate of Farm Accreditation is given for farm produce that have met certain criteria.The SALM (Sijil Akreditasi Ladang Malaysia) has to be backed by documents as evidence of the product source of origin and processes involved from harvesting to packaging.This is to ensure that the products are environmentally friendly and safe to eat.I am sure the US being more advanced that us, would have a similar system in place.Or don't they?If the system is present for domestic produce,whereby each source of product is assigned a number and given a name or brand, I am sure identifying the source of the salmonella contamination would not be a problem.
After this, all vegetable products have to be coded,labelled and branded like what I think is being practised in the oranges, pears and apples industry.But how do you label and brand spinach and cilantro?

Meanwhile,boil your tomatoes and turn them into puree or ketchup.