It's Fresh -- But Is It Safe?
I can now report, days later, that I stayed healthy. Braga, like every other grower in the valley faces the challenge of rebuilding consumer confidence after last year's outbreaks of e-coli caused illness that was linked to spinach from the Salinas Valley. None of Braga's crops was contaminated by e-coli but every grower suffered when worried consumers stopped eating green vegetables.
This year's lettuce and spinach crops in the Valley are just beginning to grow and they are doing so under some tight new guidelines. With California's Department of Food and Agriculture, the state's growers and shippers have drawn up some 50 pages of "best practices" for growing and handling leafy greens. Following the guidelines is voluntary but those who sign on will be subject to inspection by state officials. Their produce will also carry a seal certifying that the vegetables were grown and processed under the "best practices". (We'll be reporting more on this on tonight's Evening News, as part of our series "Safe Enough to Eat?")
Braga says the new rules are no problem. He says he's been following most of them for years though he will now be doing more testing of soil and water. But he says he has always figured he and his workers provide a very immediate measure of the safety of his produce. Whatever is being harvested, whether its lettuce, spinach, cauliflower or broccoli, Braga and his workers always take some home at the end of the day. If there was a problem, he says he would probably know about it pretty quickly.
Still, Braga says, it's a long way from "farm to fork" with lots of opportunities for contamination along the way. When his workers pick crops they wear rubber gloves and face masks, shoppers in the supermarket don't do the same. Braga says who hasn't seen somebody in the produce section pick up a bunch of broccoli or some other vegetable, look it over and then put it back. That's just one reason, he says, that it's a good idea to wash fresh vegetables thoroughly.
But as I saw, Braga doesn't always wait to get home before he samples what he grows. And I can also attest that that fresh, unwashed broccoli, right from the field, not only didn't make me sick, it was delicious.