Yikes! I am speechless. What a ghastly thought. What does he do with his harvest? Sell it again?

Yes.

oh,my. times are getting difficult by the minute. You never truly know what is totally safe to ingest... Signs of the times we live in.

Well, we now know the Spanish cucumbers weren't at fault, it was German bean sprouts...

The bottom line is, we've been experiencing a lot of salmonella outbreaks here in the US in the past few years. Let's see, according to the CDC, we've had:

5 major salmonella outbreaks:
• A recall of 50,000 pounds of ground turkey occurred earlier this year.
• Chicken and feed contamination resulted in the recall of 500 million eggs in 2010.
• Processing plant contamination resulted in a variety of foods, including peanut butter crackers, sickening people in 46 states in 2009.
• Poor kitchen practices caused foods to become under-cooked and cross-contaminated at restaurants and grocery stores in 2008.
• Trucks hauling raw eggs, then ice cream, caused 200,000 to become ill nationwide in 1994.
-- Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


Which is why I share this link from the CDC:

Food Safety

GOOD GRIEF!!! Maybe we need to stop eating all together???

As soon as we move in and get settled I'm starting a garden and we will build a greenhouse. The new house has a huge backyard with lots of room for vegetable garden and greenhouse - can't wait!

My stepfather is a fantastic gardener, Yonuh. When they moved to Green Valley from Wisconsin he joined the local arid gardener group in GV. But he also created fantastic gardens at their home. He even put in a sprinkler system - dug the ground himself with a chisel to install it -- so that he could grow roses and other water loving plants. They also had veggies.

I believe it was actually his garden that sold their house -- that, the fact that theirs was a gold course lot, and their view of the mountains. So if you decide you need any help getting your garden going, I'd suggest you look to find out whether there is an arid gardening club in Tucson...

There is an organic gardening group in Tucson - their web site has a wealth of information. I think the trick is to grow vegetables that are adapted to our climate and other plants that don't need a lot of water. Our water system is tiered, so the more we use, the more we pay. We plan on using a grey-water system as much as possible for the trees and the vegetables. I already use no phosphate laundry products, so we should be good.

There's a new post out on the Huffington post that links the new e. coli outbreak to sprouts too! Fenugreek seeds is also the culprit which makes me incredibly fearful because I use Fenugreek quite often as well as take supplements containing it and as many of you ladies know fenugreek has been found to help increase libido and lessen the effect of hot flashes and mood fluctuations that are common symptoms of menopause and PMS. Makes you want to think that through right?!

I know an entire family eating strictly organic foodstuff! And think I'm crazy for doing otherwise. Geese!