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While you were busy hating on tomatoes, another food may have been making everyone sick.

After the tomato industry lost $250 million over the scare, government officials are only now considering other causes of the recent Salmonella outbreak — salsa ingredients, as a number of sick people had dined at Mexican restaurants.

Jalapeño peppers, cilantro, or another salsa ingredient may be to blame, but investigators — including those at the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and local health departments — failed to consider that possibility before issuing the warning against tomatoes.

It may not sound like a huge deal, but tomato farmers and distributors are more than a little annoyed.

According to the editor of Produce Business (a magazine that must fly off the shelves): “The produce industry will insist on congressional hearings — that there will be a real investigation into how this was conducted. This is a real disaster.”

I guess the moral of the story is: eat whatever you want. The government has no idea what they’re talking about anyway.

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