With one dead and almost 300 sick from Salmonella in cucumbers from Mexico, the buy local refrain is once again trumped as the solution to food safety woes.

Sorta easy to do in North America at the end of summer.

Sweet Water Nursery owner Tom Karakalos and his wife farm their food just seven miles west of Creswell in Oregon. They say they take pride in their organic and uncontaminated product, especially in the midst of this Salmonella outbreak.

“It’s never been a problem for us,” says Erica Trappe. “We’ve been selling produce for over 20 years with never a Salmonella to be seen.”

Maybe their bacteria-sensing goggles are fuzzy.

Customers John and Olivia O’Hare are taking action by only shopping local-. They say they’re avoiding the potential of contaminated produce.
“Who knows what’s on it,” says John O’Hare. “Who knows what you’re going to be ingesting with the food. I never get that aspect here.”

Unless the outbreak is local. And that happens too.