Dataset of the Day: Who Put Salmonella in my Salsa?
June 26th, 2008by Emily Sciarillo
As the outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul from raw tomatoes spreads throughout the country, we thought it would be good to track the cases over time. You can find all of these updated datasets, ready to be mapped, at Finder!.
This map, made from the dataset Cases of Salmonella Saintpaul All Updates shows the spread of the outbreak throughout June.
Finder! also has datasets on the areas in the U.S., Canada, Guatemala, and Mexico whose tomatoes have been declared safe by the CDC. This map shows those places as of June 20th. Canada, Belgium, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Netherlands and Puerto Rico are also included on the safe list.
Knowing which states have safe tomatoes can be helpful but sometimes it’s difficult to know exactly where tomatoes in the grocery store came from. Shopping at your local farmers market is a good way to be sure of the origin of your fresh produce.
Finder! has datasets on farmers markets that provides not only the location of the market but hours of operation, contact information and much more. Just make sure you ask the farmers if the products for sale are from their farm and make sure you are in a state whose tomatoes have been declared safe. Here is a map of our California Farmers Market dataset.
So check out Finder!, check out your local farmers market and enjoy your fresh tomato salsa again!
Popularity: 11% [?]
July 11th, 2008 at 10:56 am
On the “safe tomatoes” map, it appears that you show the Mexican states of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, and Hidalgo as “not yet safe.” However, the three states that are actually not yet on the FDA safe list are Coahuila, Sinaloa, and Jalisco (as of 11 July). At least as of 23 June, I know that the states not yet deemed “safe” were the same (Coahuila, Sinaloa, and Jalisco). Sinaloa and Jalisco are central coastal states, and Coahuila is along the northern border with Texas.
Very interesting site!
July 14th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Thanks for pointing that out. The new map shows the correct and updated “safe” areas and includes Canada and Guatemala.
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
[…] As a geographer, the question of how salmonella spread spatially throughout the U.S. is an interesting one. During the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, I did a blog showing the distribution of Salmonella cases by state over time. […]