Small Part of a Whole, Unfortunately: Food

Hello Alamo!

According to a Center for Disease Control and Prevention that I don’t fully trust at the moment, our state never got hit with the recent outbreak of cyclospora. Yay.

However, that was just luck, if even true. It does take time to link illness to its source, only some of the possible culprit has been taken off the market, and as of this morning, data shows cases of cyclosporiasis increasing. Investigations into how this parasite contaminated the food supply likely won’t produce answers for a while either.

What is Cyclospora?

This is a gorgeous guide to this question, and I really encourage you to take the time to read it. But the simple answer is that Cyclospora cayetanensis is typically found in human feces, and can initially make its way to humans through contaminated food or water. To me this sounds like chicken and the egg-in order to get to feces, it has to be ingested, so???? Obviously not as much is known about this parasite as, say, salmonella or E. coli.

How Do Parasites Contaminate the Food Supply?

Typical food production in this country goes through many stages: farms or other food manufacturers harvesting it, storage, wash and prep, processing, packaging, shipping… Obviously we can’t discount how important this long process is to communities that are food deserts, but contamination is more possible with each added step.

Those additional steps could be extra protection against an outbreak such as this, but it depends on the funding and resources available to each step in that process. The Federal Department of Agriculture has strict requirements, but federal budget cuts to these programs don’t exactly inspire much reassurance.

What Can We Do?

The worst thing we could do is stop eating vegetables and greens because of this outbreak. Our bodies need those nutrients to keep us going, and consuming from a source that already has them from the get-go is a good choice.

There’s still so much uncertainty about what caused this, if our food supply in NM was affected, when Cyclospora will be filtered out of the supply, and when the next outbreak hits (I’m reading that salmonella is ongoing as well).

I don’t want to be one of those writers who relies on fear-mongering to make a point, but it’s disingenuous to call a scary truth “fear-mongering.”

Until we know the source of the Cyclospora outbreak there’s no guarantee, but for the time being, many people are relying on local farmers for food safety. Those steps I mentioned that go into the food supply chain are halved when your food comes straight from the land you live on, through a farmers’ hands, and to your dinner table.

I will see you at the Alamogordo Farmer’s Market Saturday at 10am.

Salud!