Comments on: What is Salmonella & how did it get in my tomatoes?

By: Tdave

Tdave — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:35:44 +0000

Before I eat pizza, or cream sauces, I have to take 2 or 3 Lactase tablets for my lactose intolerance. It’s a brand of lactase enzyme supplement. It seems to work.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:58:51 +0000

Staci and Melodye: If you developed lactose intolerance from an antibiotic, I highly recommend taking an acidophilus supplement. You can get them at Wal-Mart, and they should fix up your stomach within a fairly short time (they’re also good for preventing gas). I had lactose intolerance for a while as a kid, and drinking milk with acidophilus (and eating lots and lots of yogurt) got my stomach straightened back out in no time.

By: Melodye

Melodye — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:16:25 +0000

Staci – The same thing happened to me after being on an antibiotic. I was never lactose intolerant before the antibiotic. Luckily, I can eat cheese, yogurt, and whipped cream, and milk only if it’s been heated (i.e. cream sauce) but I can’t eat ice cream, drink milk or have cream cheese.

I’m not a biologist/med student/whatever, but I wonder if maybe the antibiotic killed off too much of the “good” bacteria in my stomach and now that’s why I can’t digest the lactose? I don’t know…

But to bring this back on topic – I also knew my aversion to tomatoes would pay off!

By: Staci

Staci — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:05:14 +0000

Last May I got something similar to salmonella, but my doctor never did any tests to determine the exact cause of my illness. So, I’ll never know for sure what made me so sick. I got violently sick a few hours after eating pizza and remained violently sick for a week. I had a fever, chills, nausea, painful abdominal cramps, and I couldn’t eat or drink without it coming back out in 30 minutes or less. When I walked up the stairs in my house, I had to sit and rest for 10 minutes because it made me so exhausted. I finally went to my doctor after 6 days and he put me on Cipro to help clear my stomach of any bacteria that was causing my illness. It was another two days when my fever broke and that made feel 100 times better even though my stomach was still having issues digesting food. I finished my one week supply of Cipro and my stomach was still having issues, but it was nowhere near as bad as before. So, I just dealt with it and assumed my stomach needed more time to recuperate. I slowly figured out which foods didn’t upset my stomach, which turned out to be peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and rice. For the most part I ate that for the next 3 weeks with some experiments in eating other foods that either went well or horribly wrong.

Now things are pretty much back to normal, but for some reason I can’t eat ice cream anymore. I can eat cheese, fettucine alfredo, mac & cheese, and drink milk, but if I eat ice cream it makes me sick. Any thoughts?

By: Bucsfan

Bucsfan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:58:44 +0000

I guess we could stop importing and let our, better regulated, farmers plant the crops that we consume.

Stop farm subsidies and we can eat clean, cheaper food.

By: PartiallyDeflected

PartiallyDeflected — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:11:07 +0000

Why can’t I get the theme song from “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” out of my head?

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:12:55 +0000

We have a really great farmer’s market in my town, so I buy everything I possibly can there. It’s cheaper than grocery stores, and supports the local economy. Good thing, too, because I haven’t been watching the news, and had no idea about the tainted tomatoes.

By: Claire

Claire — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:00:15 +0000

i knew my aversion to tomatoes would pay off one day. hopefully this will be over soon.
also sounds like another good reason to buy locally and know where your food comes from.

By: Ira

Ira — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:24:19 +0000

Maybe it wasn’t salmonella then, dee, but the listed symptoms seem to be dead on

By: adrienne

adrienne — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:02:20 +0000

Ew. I never want to read about ‘the joys of diarrhea’ again. Great article, though. I had no idea how the E. coli outbreak got started; sometimes I wish I weren’t so curious.