By Darbie Granberry
University of Georgia
The biggest fear has always been getting food poisoning from meats. In the past few years, though, we've found that improperly grown, packed or shipped fresh fruits and vegetables can lead to serious illness, too.
Can vegetables from our own gardens make us sick? Possibly, if they're contaminated with human pathogens such as hepatitis A, Salmonella and E. coli 0157:H7.
The good news is that the chance of anyone in the United States getting sick from garden vegetables is remote. Human pathogens don't occur naturally on vegetables.
Safety key
So how do people sometimes get sick from eating produce? Contamination, contamination, contamination.Whenever produce is grown, packed or shipped under poor sanitary conditions, there's always the chance it will be contaminated and become a health hazard.
The November 2003 outbreak of hepatitis A is a prime example. Green onions harboring the hepatitis virus caused more than 600 illnesses and three deaths in Pennsylvania.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are 76 million foodborne illnesses a year in the United States. Every year more than 325,000 people are hospitalized and 5,000 people die from eating contaminated food.
As you might guess, the greatest concern is for the fruits and vegetables you eat raw as snacks and in salads. Some scientists link nearly as many foodborne illness cases to produce as to poultry, beef and fish combined.
Simple steps
To make sure no one gets sick from eating fruits and vegetables from your garden:
- Use good personal hygiene.
- Don't apply manure to your garden.
- Keep animals out of your garden.
- Use only drinking-quality water for irrigation.
- Use clean containers when you harvest.
In the kitchen
When you prepare fruits and veggies to eat, don't forget to use the kitchen faucet. Hand-scrub firm produce such as apples, pears, tomatoes and bell peppers under running water.Spray root vegetables and tubers with water, scrub them with a vegetable brush and then rinse them.
Wash vegetables with rinds, such as watermelons and cantaloupes, too. If the surface isn't clean, you can transfer bacteria to the flesh when you cut them.
No one should get sick from eating produce from your garden. You can make sure they won't by using good sanitation and following sound gardening practices.
Enjoy your garden produce. But remember, the best food safety in the world can't protect you from the ills of overindulgence.
(Darbie Granberry is an Extension Service horticulturist with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
