Who would you believe?

Dr. Michael Doyle (pictured), director of the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety told the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo that in the 25 years preceding 1997, there were 190 outbreaks of foodborne illness associated with fresh produce. In the five years that followed, that number jumped to 249. The list of offenders varied from lettuce, melons and seed sprouts to apple juice, orange juice and tomatoes.

Doyle predicts that produce and other foods from plants will be the dominant vehicles for foodborne illnesses, accounting for more than 50 percent of all illnesses currently estimated at more than 70 million cases a year.

Dan Dempster, president, Canadian Produce Marketing Association, told several Canadian papers that fewer than 3 per cent of the 1,127 outbreaks of foodborne illness reported in Canada were definitively linked to fresh fruits and vegetables, and that produce "is actually the safest fresh food group," based on an unpublished study that apparently the industry has been privy too.

I’ll stick with Dr. Doyle.