Americans increasingly eat imported foods, yet those items now account for a disproportionate number of disease outbreaks, concludes a federal study.
The imported goods most likely to make people sick illness? Fish and produce.
Latin America combined with the Caribbean was the most common region whose exports ended causing illness here. Mexico was at the top of that list, accounting for 42 of the 195 outbreaks of food-borne illness the study tracked from 1996 to 2014.
Those outbreaks sickened at least 10,685 people, resulting in 1,017 hospitalizations and 19 deaths. The study was published Wednesday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
While the role of imported food in making consumers sick remains quite small, it is growing. While only three outbreaks a year were the norm in the study’s early years, that had jumped to 18 a year by the end of the study.
Authors of the study stressed they hadn’t found that foreign food is getting more dangerous. Rather, the main difference is the changing demands of the American consumer.
American shoppers and diners now want “a wider selection of food products” and access to all sorts of fruits and vegetables year-round, regardless of the U.S. growing season.
The U.S. now imports about 97 percent of its fish and shellfish, about half of the fruit consumed here, and a fifth of vegetables.
Mexico provides about a quarter of fruits and nuts imported to the United States, along with nearly half of imported vegetables. Chile and Costa Rica are big providers of vegetables as well.
When it came to seafood, imports from Asia were implicated the most often, accounting for 65 percent of cases.
Fish was by far the biggest culprit. Mollusks and crustaceans – crabs, lobster and shrimp – accounting for far fewer episodes of multi-state illness.
The researchers pointed out that a law that went into effect in 2011 granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration greater authority to require imports to meet the same food safety standards as foods produced domestically.
Kathleen O’Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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