(cheerful music) - Welcome to Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

I'm your host, Kim Todd, and on Digging Deeper we have in-depth discussions with extension and industry experts about those important landscape topics.

Tonight, we are going to be talking about toxins in your food, how to be safe, with our great guest, Cindy Brison, who is with university extension, Nebraska Extension.

So as we start our conversation, Cindy, tell us exactly what you do and why this is important to you and why you are really our expert tonight.

- Okay.

I work in the Douglas-Sarpy Extension Office.

I'm a registered dietician.

I work with food safety.

That's my focus.

So I work with cottage foods, I work with teaching restaurants, getting them certified.

So I also work with master gardeners and we talk about garden safety and produce safety.

So any sort of food safety is right at my alley.

I have lots of food safety certifications that help me do my job.

We're right in the middle of canning season and people growing things, so this is an excellent topic.

- So Cindy, we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 million new gardeners, due to COVID, and we've kept about 75% of those.

And we do get an awful lot of questions on Backyard Farmer that deal directly with what is in the soil, what is in my food, how can I keep my family safe?

In all of that, both working in the garden and then bringing that produce in.

So talk about how that happens, how we keep people safe.

- So it starts in your garden.

It starts when you're planting things, it starts when you're amending your soil.

So I apologize, they're pretty skanky-looking, gloves, garden gloves.

They're pretty dirty but these are my gloves, I use them.

When I pull weeds, these are the ones I use.

When I'm out there harvesting, I use disposable gloves because I don't want to get anything that might be in the weeds or if I'm spreading compost or something, I don't want to use those same gloves to harvest my food.

Great source of contamination.

Not cleaning your tools.

Using tools to plant and then not cleaning them or picking up things that have weeds, anything like that, and then using the same tools to harvest your food.

You really need to make sure that you're washing and cleaning them up in between.

So you're not cross-contaminating.

- So I'm fairly certain that most people that work in the garden don't even think about that.

Is it possible, if you have gloves that... mine are even worse than that, just so you know, if you have those gloves is it possible to get them clean enough in between gardening/harvesting that you won't send those toxins into the food you eat?

- Sure, throw them in the wash, they're just fine.

Another thing, once your plants are growing, don't amend the soil with raw manure while things are growing.

Anything that's going to hurt the plant, keep your pet out of your garden, try to keep wildlife out of your garden.

Because within two hours of a pet doing anything in your garden, it can be up in the root system of the plant.

And that causes... that's where we get bacteria.

That's where we get things like that.

The other thing is the soil.

The soil itself has naturally-occurring bacteria in it and some of it sometimes can be botulism.

So we just have to make sure that we're harvesting our produce safely.

We're bringing it in, we're using a produce brush to clean them off.

We're making sure that whatever produce we're using doesn't have any nicks, doesn't have any cuts, doesn't have anywhere for bacteria to get in.

That's really important.

If you get tomatoes with huge gouges out of them, or this year the woodchucks are eating my garden.

So it's not an uncommon for me to find chew marks on things.

All places bacteria can get in.

So making sure you don't have anything like that, and then washing it.

Cold running water is the best way to clean off your produce.

And if it's tough, like a cantaloupe, use a produce brush.

- So that's really intriguing to me because of course we get...

Right now it's tomato season and we're getting all sorts of questions about my tomato has blossom end rot, horn worms got into it, it looks a little odd on the surface, can I still eat that?

How do I know that that is still safe for me to eat?

- If you're totally in doubt and you're concerned, get rid of it.

- Yeah.

- If you think it's just a, for example, I brought in tomatoes last night, and I dropped one on the ground and it cracked.

Well, I cracked it, so it's fine.

I brought it in, I washed it, put in the refrigerator.

We used it today, it was safe.

So is it moldy?

If mold is on some produce, get rid of it.

You can't cut it away because it's in the produce even if you can't see it.

If there's other blemishes, a bruise, something like that, you can probably cut it away.

But you just have to use your best judgment.

- So we've harvested these things and then we've handled them properly, let's assume that they've been handled properly.

So whatever possibility of toxins, at least the ones that will really make you sick, is probably pretty nil.

How do we hold them?

I mean, do we just wash them and bag them?

Do they sit on the counter?

What do we do with that produce?

- Excellent question.

So you don't wash it until you eat it.

That's the first thing, because as you wash it you wash off anything that's protective on the outside and it starts to deteriorate really fast.

The other thing is that depending upon the produce, if the produce can sit out on the counter, that's great.

If it can't, put it in the refrigerator.

Once you cut a piece of produce, like a melon or a watermelon or a tomato, anything like that, some lettuce, once you've cut it, you need to put it in the refrigerator within two hours.

If this sits out on the counter for more than two hours, you need to get rid of it once it's cut.

Because even though you've handled it safely, bacteria can still grow and make you pretty sick.

- Wow, okay.

So anybody who takes one slice out of their tomato for their hamburger, you better just eat the rest of the tomato since tomatoes actually change their flavor entirely when they go into the refrigerator.

So those are things to know, as well.

All right.

Well, so talk a little bit more about the getting it from the garden into your body and how we actually... Give us some examples of how to handle specifics, like corn.

- Okay, so think about when you're harvesting out of your garden, what are you putting them in?

Are you carrying them in an old box that maybe has sat in your shed for a while?

Are you carrying them in in a clean bowl?

What are you harvesting your produce in?

Start with something clean, bring it in.

I like to harvest my produce, especially tomatoes, in a colander.

So I take them right in and I can wash them off when I'm ready to use them, start with that.

Once you get them inside, anything you're doing in the house or in your kitchen with your produce, make sure you're starting with washing your hands, a clean surface.

If you have dirt on your produce and you set it on your counter and then you start cutting things and you haven't washed your hands from coming in from the garden, what an excellent way to cross contaminate your food and make somebody sick.

- [Kim] All right, good point, yeah.

- Think about once you... if we have corn, so if I husk the corn, once I husk it, it's going to go right back in the refrigerator.

So corn does better, nutritionally, if it's in the fridge.

So when I want to husk it, I take it out, I husk it.

I put it right back in the refrigerator and then I use it the same day I husk it.

The longer you let it sit there, the worse, nutritionally it's going to get.

But we'll talk about that at another time But handling it safely, making sure you wash your hands, when you husk it, put it on a clean plate.

It's kind of like cooking hamburgers.

You take the raw hamburgers out on one plate.

You take the cooked hamburgers in on another.

It's the same way with produce- - [Kim] All right.

- ... making sure that you're clean.

- All right, we want to make sure that you are watching us on Facebook.

You are sending us all of your questions.

You're telling us whether you like what we're talking about.

Whether the subject matter works, the pros, the cons.

We really want your feedback because if we're going to dig deep on subjects, we want to know what to dig deep on.

All right.

Now, Cindy, you already brought up the nutritional issue.

So how do people know that produce one is better than produce two?

I mean, this is an heirloom tomato that I have in my hand.

It's lovely, it's just gorgeous, very interesting.

Is this more nutritional than a celebrity tomato that is bred for something different?

How do people know, is there any way to know?

- Good question.

So a tomato is a tomato.

They're both nutritionally equal, kind of like...

I'll ask you a question.

These are two apples.

One is organic and one is conventional.

And these are the questions that we get all the time.

This is where nutritional value starts.

Can you tell which is which?

- [Kim] Absolutely not.

- Okay, that's an excellent answer because the only thing that's different is how they were grown.

Nutritionally, they're the same.

So this is where your preferences come in.

Do you feel the need, do you want to buy organic?

Do you want to buy conventional?

Do you like heirloom tomatoes?

People that I've spoken with, master gardeners who are religious about heirloom tomatoes, and then I've spoken with other people that say, "Eh, I can take them or I can get them.

They all taste the same."

So it's your personal preference.

- So talk a little bit about organic.

Because again, we are getting, as we would expect with food safety and people concerned about their own health, the feeling or the belief that organic is better.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

- Yes, so this is the organic one.

This is the non-organic one.

So the only difference is how they were raised.

So you can still use compost.

You can still use manure on an organic apple, or not necessarily an apple, but on organic produce versus conventional.

You can still use certain pesticides on one or the other, they're different, but you can still have things like that on it.

You can still have contamination.

It's just... what we need to think about is that farmers and producers are not going to spray their crops, they're not going to put chemicals on if they absolutely don't have to.

It costs money, it costs time.

You have to let crops sit out just like you would, you're harvesting something in your garden.

If you put a chemical on your tomatoes to kill something, you still have that period of time where you can't harvest it.

Well, farmers and producers have the same thing.

So it's purely a choice.

They both come to the table to feed people.

We can't feed the world on organic crops, so we have to have conventional, too.

I think they're both good choices.

The thing with nutrition, and that comes not from how they were raised necessarily, but it comes from what you do with it once you harvest it.

Think about an ear of corn.

Which do you think is healthier, this ear of corn?

Or not healthier...

Which do you think is more nutritious, the ear of corn or the can of corn?

- I would say the ear of corn, as long as the ear of corn is very fresh.

- Yes, that's right.

It can be just as nutritious as a bag of corn, a bag of frozen corn.

Every day this corn sits in your refrigerator, it loses nutritional value.

So think about corn is real local right now.

So if you go to your grocery store, probably have corn from less than 50 miles, very local, probably picked this morning.

This one's been in my refrigerator for two days now, so it's lost some nutritional value.

When canned corn or frozen corn is harvested, it is frozen or canned the same day.

So, it's at its peak of nutritional value.

Again, if you buy this corn on the weekend and you don't eat it until Thursday or Friday, it's lost a lot of flavor and nutritional value.

So you have to be really careful.

Buy your fresh produce, eat it in the beginning of the week and use canned and frozen later on and you'll be fine.

You'll get the peak of nutrition of everything.

- That is really good advice.

And I'm sure that people who either don't have access to a good fresh market or farmer's market, or they really don't like to go to the grocery store or can't get there very often are thinking, "Gosh, it would be so much easier if we had those other things."

So that's really kind of what we look at in terms of putting community gardens in, getting more and more people involved in... You want corn for dinner?

Go out and pick your own corn or your own tomatoes, as opposed to having to go purchase it.

So you used the word contaminants and we started with toxins.

Are there differences that really will work their way into the food that you're harvesting?

Or how do you define those a little differently?

- So a contaminant could be you not washing your hands.

You could contaminate the food that way.

The toxins going to be something that you allow to grow.

So you get your potatoes and you cook your potatoes.

You don't wash them, you bake them and you let them sit out on your counter all afternoon after you bake them before you put them away.

Well, if you don't wash them, there could be botulism on the outside.

And if you let them sit at room temperature all afternoon, for more than a couple of hours, then botulism could grow.

And it's one of those things where that's how the toxin gets there, because you're mishandling your food.

You're not washing it, you're not handling it appropriately after you've cooked it or before you cook it or you're not storing it appropriately.

How long has it been in your refrigerator?

Should only be three to four days for leftovers, not two weeks.

It shouldn't be green and mushy by the time you get rid of it.

(Kim laughs) - Yeah, so again, you bring up great points.

We don't want to frighten people away from growing their own food or eating fresh, of course, or eating the best nutritional foods you can.

So what would you leave people with?

In addition, of course, to the resources that I know you've been involved in creating through Nebraska Extension, what would you leave them with?

- Probably the best one, wash your hands, use clean surfaces.

Wash your produce.

If you eat an apple, wash it.

Not with soap, not with... You know, during the peak of the pandemic, people were using bleach on their produce and poison control got... their calls went up 40%.

No bleach, no.

Water, lots of water will be just fine.

Hand-washing and lots of water on your produce and you'll be okay.

- All right, and I think we have some great website information that you have sent us.

So I think we can pull that up on the screen and you can talk about it a little bit with people, how to get to it, what it tells you.

- So this is on food.unl.edu.

It's strictly about handling produce from your garden, how to harvest it, how to handle it once you've harvested it, what to do with it, how long to keep it in the refrigerator.

All great information.

Pretty short, lots of nice pictures.

This one is also on food.unl.edu, how to use your fresh fruits and vegetables.

It goes through most produce.

and it'll give you how to store it, how to harvest it, a recipe on how to use it, and what to do with the leftovers.

So this is another great site too.

- So I'm really glad you brought both of those up because, on occasion, we do get questions on Backyard Farmer about how to can something, or how to pickle.

And there actually was a pickle book for Backyard Farmer, years and years and years ago, which was really fun.

But those are questions that we really are not comfortable answering.

We will answer everything from rots and spots in the garden or in the landscape, to the insects, the soil, the turf, those kinds of things.

But it's good to be able to send people to those websites instead.

So really appreciate your time, Cindy, that is all the time we do have for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer tonight.

We want to say thanks to Cindy for coming in and talking with us.

We will be back next time with another in-depth discussion.

Do be sure to watch Backyard Farmer live every Thursday, 7:00 PM Central on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

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