Tomatoes

Tomatoes disappeared from cheeseburgers. Fresh salsa was suddenly in short supply. Supermarket produce sections were in disarray. Homemakers checked the fridge, and waiters were pressed to explain why certain menu items were simply unavailable. Amid concerns over a widening salmonella outbreak, the nation's restaurants, supermarkets and consumers faced a bleak tomato landscape Monday.

The federal government Tuesday expanded its salmonella warning nationwide about three kinds of tomatoes as more retailers and restaurants stopped offering them and growers said sales were plummeting. Officials at the Food and Drug Administration said they were still searching for the origin of the tainted fresh Roma, plum and red round tomatoes, though industry insiders and early reports suggested that the field had been narrowed to Florida or Mexico.

Federal health and food inspectors so far have failed to find the source of salmonella-tainted tomatoes that have sickened at least 167 people across the nation. "Obviously the critical question is, where did these specific tomatoes come from? And we're not quite there yet. At this point today, we don't know where they came from," said David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for foods. New reports of illness are still coming in, said Dr.

Federal officials said Thursday that they might never learn which farms produced tainted tomatoes that have now sickened 228 people in 23 states with a rare form of salmonella. "At this stage of the investigation there is no guarantee that we will be able to trace the outbreak back to the farm level, although that is the goal," David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for foods, told reporters Thursday.

As the search for the source of salmonella-tainted tomatoes dragged on, federal officials announced several more cases of infection Monday. The rare Salmonella Saintpaul strain has now caused 277 reported infections in 28 states and Washington, D.C., since mid-April and has led to at least 43 hospitalizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Tomatoes are making a comeback in Southern California and most of the nation, though the source of the salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 383 people remains a mystery. McDonald's Corp. said Wednesday that it would reintroduce sliced tomatoes in its U.S.

Several farms in Florida and Mexico appear to have produced at least some of the tomatoes implicated in what is shaping up to be the country's largest tomato-borne salmonella outbreak, federal health officials said Friday. But the lengthy search for the source of the bacteria continues, said David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for foods, in a conference call with reporters.

As the number of cases in an ongoing salmonella outbreak climbed past 800 Friday, federal health officials said that they might never find the cause -- and that tomatoes might not be the culprit after all. The news was greeted with resignation and a degree of anger from shoppers and growers who have seen millions of tomatoes taken off grocery shelves in the last month.

An insect-borne virus that has killed tomato plants across Central America, Florida and Georgia has been detected in California for the first time. The virus, known as tomato yellow leaf curl, devastated crops in the Dominican Republican and in Mexico, forcing those countries to curtail the growing season to contain the spread of the disease. Tomatoes are California's eighth-largest crop.

This just in: Organic tomatoes have more lycopene than conventionally farmed tomatoes. This also just in: Lycopene may not be as healthful as we thought. So goes the bold field of tomato research. As the most frequently consumed produce in America after potatoes, tomatoes provide vitamins, minerals and fiber -- and, of course, they're nonfat. Plus, with high levels of the antioxidant lycopene, they've been considered a potentially powerful cancer fighter.