WASHINGTON — Only jalapeño peppers grown in Mexico seem to be implicated in the nationwide salmonella outbreak, the government announced Friday in clearing the U.S. crop.
The Food and Drug Administration urged consumers to avoid raw Mexican jalapeños and the serrano peppers often confused with them, or dishes made with them such as salsa.
But the big question is how those who love hot peppers would know where the chiles came from, especially in restaurant food.
“You’re going to have to ask the person you’re buying it from,” said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s food safety chief, who is advising restaurants and grocery stores to know their suppliers and pass that information to customers.
The big break in an outbreak that has sickened nearly 1,300 people came Monday, when the FDA announced it had found the same strain of salmonella responsible for the outbreak on a single Mexican- grown jalapeño in a south Texas produce warehouse.
Tomatoes had been the prime suspect for weeks. And although those now on the market are considered safe to eat, health officials still haven’t exonerated them from causing illnesses when the outbreak began in April.
The move Friday clearing U.S. peppers came because clusters of illnesses around the country all seem to be tracing back to Mexican jalapeños, though not all were sold through the McAllen, Texas, produce warehouse, Acheson said.
“Domestically grown products are not tracing back at all to the outbreak,” he told The Associated Press.
FDA inspectors are on the farm that grew the only tainted pepper discovered so far, trying to determine where else it sent a harvest that began in April, Acheson said. The farm is large, but the question now is whether it harvested enough to be responsible for such a geographically large outbreak.
