Is Farmers’ Market Produce Safer During the Cyclospora Outbreak? ...Middle East

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Some food-safety experts say farmers’ markets could be a safer bet, though that depends on where the produce actually comes from and the practices of the individual farmer. “If you are getting produce directly from the farmer who grew it, I would consider that lower risk,” says Kalmia Kniel, a professor of microbial food safety at the University of Delaware.

Darin Detwiler, an associate teaching professor of food policy at Northeastern University and author of Food Safety: Past, Present, and Predictions, says he personally favors farmers’ markets because locally grown produce typically travels a shorter distance, passes through fewer processing and distribution steps, and can offer more transparency about where and how it was grown. 

Rodney E. Rohde, chair of the Medical Laboratory Science Program at Texas State University, says it makes sense that people perceive produce sold at farmers’ markets as being safer—but he says there is little scientific evidence to back that up. “The risk of contamination really depends on how it was grown, harvested, transported and stored, rather than where it is sold,” he says. 

A smaller farm is also not necessarily better, says Don Schaffner, a food-science expert at Rutgers University. “Small farmers often do not have the resources that large operations” do, he says. 

Bill Marler, a food-safety lawyer, recommends buying intact heads of lettuce and whole fruits and vegetables over bagged, boxed, or pre-cut produce. Centralized chopping, washing, mixing, and packaging can spread contamination from a relatively small amount of produce across a much larger batch, he says. 

Cooking food to an internal temperature of at least 158°F can kill Cyclospora. Rohde says he has been cooking most of his veggies lately and has been washing produce “more vigorously than usual.” 

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