Salmonella in Pepper: Not One of the Usual Suspects

The latest salmonella mystery has been solved: the pepper did it. Daniele Inc. has had to recall more than a million pounds of meat -- not because the meat was carelessly handled, but because of contamination in the pepper used to spice the meat.

Black pepper does not seem a likely suspect, given that salmonella is generally associated with animals, but the bacteria can survive for weeks on its own and get into virtually any kind of food that is handled in unsanitary conditions.

The reason we're hearing more about these strange sources has more to do with the fact that our ability to track outbreaks of foodborne illnesses has improved -- i.e. pepper is perhaps no more likely to be the culprit than it was before, but we're more likely to figure it out.

Salmonella is easily killed through cooking, but unfortunately, when it gets into unexpected products like pepper (or peanut butter), cooking is much less likely to happen.