Consumer

CHICAGO (CBS) ― McDonald's is the latest business to stop serving sliced tomatoes, over mounting concerns about salmonella. 

So far, 16 states, including Illinois and Indiana are dealing with cases of food poisoning. Twenty-seven cases of illness have been reported in Illinois, possibly linked to tomatoes.

Health officials are not sure how the tomatoes might have become contaminated, but say it could be something in the soil, or from farm workers' hands.

Click here for an FDA list of tomato harvests not associated with the outbreak.

People shopping at Johnson's Garden Center in Valparaiso, Ind. told CBS 2 they're growing as many fruits and vegetables as they can at home, partly to avoid scares like this one.

McDonald's, Burger King, Potbelly's, Outback Steakhouse and Wal-Mart head the list of national chains pulling tomatoes off the menu because of a federal investigation of salmonella.

Felix Cardenas, owner of Maria Elena's restaurant in Valparaiso for 10 years, says he's been through food warnings before.

Every meal there begins with a little fresh salsa, and it is made using large round tomatoes - also part of the federal investigation along with Roma and plum varieties.

The Food and Drug Administration says heath departments in Texas and New Mexico are trying to find the source of illnesses there.

Cardenas watches for reports and says his distributor watches, too, to keep customers safe.

"If something goes wrong, they always call and they say hey don't use this," Cardenas said.

At Johnson's Garden Center, they say concern about salmonella and high tomato prices at grocery stores have more people trying to grow their own.

"Growing them yourself you can control what you put on them and the joy of going out and growing something on your own," said Ellery Hendricks.

But Jackie Rizzo had another idea.

"I heard on the news this morning about the salmonella and about buying tomatoes, and I've still been buying them," she said. "I haven't gotten sick. I think they're really good this year, from the grocery store."

The Indiana Health Department said there have been seven cases identified as matching the strain of salmonella indicated in the outbreak.

The source of the tomatoes responsible for the illnesses in at least 16 states has not been pinpointed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said at least 23 people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported. 

The FDA says tomatoes grown at home, cherry or grape tomatoes and tomatoes with the vine still attached are all OK.

Also not associated with the outbreak are raw Roma, red plum and round red tomatoes from Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Netherlands and Puerto Rico.

Salmonella is a bacteria that lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals. The bacteria are usually transmitted to humans by eating foods contaminated with animal feces.

Most infected people suffer fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps starting 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness tends to last four to seven days.

The FDA warned consumers in New Mexico and Texas as early as June 3 about the outbreak. The agency expanded its warning during the weekend and chains began voluntarily removing many red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes from their shelves in response.

The FDA is investigating the source of the outbreak, agency spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings said.

"We are working hard and fast on this one and hope to have something as quickly as possible," Rawlings said Monday.

Rawlings said the FDA's "traceback" investigations typically look at similarities in illnesses reported to the CDC by state health officials. Investigators work backward to find the source of the contaminated product.

FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach toured the agency's southwest regional research lab in Irvine, Calif., on Monday, where microbiologists worked to trace the source of the outbreak.

The salmonella causing the outbreak is a very unusual type called salmonella saintpaul, said von Eschenbach, who added it was not more virulent than other types of salmonella.

Tampa-based OSI Restaurant Partners LLC, which owns and operates eight brands including Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's and Bonefish Grill, said it stopped serving all raw tomatoes other than grape tomatoes on Saturday evening. The company also instructed restaurants to discard salsa and other prepared foods containing raw tomatoes.

Miami-based Burger King Corp. said it had withdrawn raw round red tomatoes from most of its U.S. restaurants, as well as locations in Canada and Puerto Rico and some other Caribbean islands. Some California restaurants continued using the tomatoes because they buy from growers in states the FDA has said are not involved in the outbreak, Burger King said.

Other restaurant operators that stopped serving most tomatoes: Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., which owns Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silver's and A&W All-American Food Restaurants; Orlando-based Darden Restaurants, which owns and operates six brands including Red Lobster and Olive Garden; Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.; and San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., which operates Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants in 15 states.

Among retailers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- the largest grocery seller in the U.S. -- is working with federal officials to ensure affected tomatoes are pulled from Wal-Marts, Neighborhood Markets and Sam's Club warehouse stores nationwide, spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said.

Galberth said the Bentonville, Ark.-based company is modifying orders to its stores and putting an electronic block at its registers as an added safety measure to keep the recalled tomatoes from being purchased.

Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., the nation's largest traditional grocery chain, said it Sunday pulled raw Roma tomatoes, plum tomatoes and red round tomatoes from all its stores in 31 states per the FDA advisory. The company had early last week pulled the tomatoes from stores in Texas and New Mexico.

Jacksonville, Fla.-based Winn-Dixie Stores Inc., which operates 521 stores in five southern states, also stopped selling tomatoes involved in the FDA warning, as did Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix Super Markets Inc. Publix offered refunds to customers who bought the tomatoes before they were removed from shelves or destroyed over the weekend.

Monrovia, Calif.-based Trader Joe's, with more than 280 grocery stores in 23 states, also stopped selling the tomatoes in question and offered refunds, according to a statement from spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki.

O'Hara Township, Penn.-based Giant Eagle, which has 223 supermarkets in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland, said it also removed the tomatoes from store shelves during the weekend; as did Minneapolis-based SuperValu Inc., which operates Jewel, Shaw's, Cub Foods, Acme and some Albertson's stores.

California Tomato Farmers President Ed Beckman said that at this time of year almost all tomatoes sold in the United States come from either Mexico or Florida.

Mexico supplies about one-third of all tomatoes consumed in the U.S. in the winter months and Florida is the No. 1 producer, with $600 million in sales annually. California is the second-largest producer, with $400 million in sales annually.

Most of the salmonella cases have been clustered in New Mexico and Texas, Beckman said.

CBS 2's Pamela Jones, Dana Kozlov and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Editor's Picks

• CBS 2 WeatherTrak Forecast
• Gay Celebrities
• Famous People Pigging Out
• Did You Know? Stars From Chicago!
• 2009 Celebrity Deaths