Too late. I've already been eating the onions I bought a few days ago. I buy single onions instead of ones that are already bagged, and I usually buy two or three at a time.

I haven't gotten sick yet.

Like Lars, I buy only loose onions and have no way of knowing who the supplier might be. I dislike buying any bagged produce - I don't even like buying cherries or grapes in those plastic pouches - as too often, one or more is damaged and starts to rot sight unseen and then the whole bag gets funky and needs to be tossed out.

Too late for us as well. I've been making 2 hour red onion/cucumber pickles for everything. Most of mine are organic so not from that farm.

This must be a huge farm and most likely the irrigation method? Contaminated water supply to be so widespread.

This started a couple weeks ago so they somehow zeroed in to the sick and hospitalized by what they were eating. Raw salads? Then tested their crisper drawers? Tracing for food issues has been better than in the past.

This is nationwide and Canada.

I did contact Baldor asking where their onions are from. Not tossing two gorgeous red onions until I hear back.

I'm braising 20 chicken thighs right now but using a frozen mirepoix I made a month ago.

I also only buy loose onions. Bought some today.

sleevendog, thank you for posting this. I went to the original article and put it on my FB page as I hadn't seen anything about it.

I usually only buy 1 at a time. it's just me cooking for me and I can't share onion with my pup. I eat onion in and on a lot of things but 1 still lasts me a long time.

last week I bought another one because the one I have is about half gone and who knows when I'll get out again to the store.

I'm giving thanks for the Farmer's Market that has been supplying me with my monthly onion, lol. I just bought my first red one yesterday for salads.

Wow. Basically, everybody everywhere throw out your onions bought after May 1.

I'm pretty sure I've only gotten onions from my farm box in that time. Phew!

I have about 40 lbs. of onions in my basement from my garden harvest. Red, white, and yellow.

The last time I bought onions was when Vidalia onions were available back in May.

Like Jack, I have red/white/yellow onions in the garden, although they aren't ready for harvest yet. I just pull them and use them, so mine are safe, I think.

Of all the things to have salmonella, though. Onions would not have been my first thought but I remember a few years ago when green onions were the culprit so I suppose it's not unusual.

I always shake my head because people fuss about home grown or produced food not being "inspected", but their chances of illness from commercially produced or prepared food is much higher. And so many people just don't wash produce they buy at the store, it astounds me. I keep thinking of how many people have handled it before someone buys it, but an onion from my garden gets touched by no one except me for the most part, at least until I pull it from the ground and hand it to you. I do remind people that I use cow manure in the gardens. so wash that produce!

Annie

I always have a 'how?//why?/what happened?' need to know when recalls come up. Not one article has presented the details. Everyone with symptoms at home or hospitalized are required to list everything they have eaten in the past five days.

Often it is the wash water that is contaminated. Store produce is so 'clean' looking. My garden garlic and onions are covered in dirt and clods of dirt in the root mass.

I looked up the 5 generation farm. Seem like nice people now devastated I'm sure. Maybe they do in-house testing.

I don't think purchasing a single onion in a grocery bin is necessarily safe.

"Onions were distributed to wholesalers, restaurants, and retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.

The onions were distributed in 5 lbs. carton. 10 lbs. carton. 25 lbs. carton. 40 lbs. carton, 50 lbs. carton. bulk, 2 lb. mesh sacks, and 3 lb. mesh sacks, 5 lb. mesh sacks, 10 lb. mesh sacks 25 lbs. mesh sacks, 50 lbs. mesh sacks under the brand names Thomson Premium, TLC Thomson International, Tender Loving Care, El Competitor, Hartley’s Best, Onions 52, Majestic, Imperial Fresh, Kroger, Utah Onions and Food Lion."

If you have suspect onions at home, couldn't you use them in foods that you cook thoroughly? Ten minutes at 167 F destroys salmonella. Also, continue to disinfect all food prep surfaces before and after use as you should be doing anyway. Chicken and eggs may well have salmonella, too, and we just make sure to cook those well.

Onions sold individually likely arrived at the store in a 25 or 50 pound bag and were unbagged and placed in the display bins. They could be from any supplier. Hard to know unless you saw them being stocked.

A produce department knows where they are from.

And yes, cooking will kill it. Raw onions are used in summer slaws and salads especially the red. I usually quick pickle reds, one to three hours. Takes the rawness out pretty quickly. Vinegar will not kill it.

I'm guessing the issue is cross contamination. We know to use a different cutting board for proteins, but would not hesitate to cut an onion, then cut other veg with the same knife for raw salad ingredients.

I don't really like raw onion much. We use green onion, chives, shallot. Big onion is usually caramelized or cooked. It is the cutting surface that might be contaminated.

It affects onions since May 1 and they are just noticing it now? I hope that means that only a small percentage of their output was affected. Of course, many onions are cooked before use and they often go in at the beginning of cooking so should have plenty of time for heat to kill it.

I generally scrub the cutting board well after cutting a raw onion on it to avoid transferring onion flavor to the other things cut on it. I might cut other things going into the same pot on it before scrubbing.

Fortunately, the red onion I have came from our CSA because I've been using that raw.

Health care workers are stressed. This may have been a covid distraction. Someone hospitalized for salmonella may have thought to be covid-positive. Tested negative, then the hunt for the cause has to be found. Takes time.

We are getting so many early spring onions via Misfits and local farms, and not shopping groceries, I have no issues. All onions are local East Coast, HudsonValley. I do have two big beauty red onions that I just found out are not from the farm recall.

I don't mean to beat this to death. Just good to know if stomach/gastric distress occurs, it is valuable information to help your doctor and health care workers know how to treat you if needing hospital care.

I'm so much more careful than ever now. Every delivery is sorted outside on a folding table. Washed, left to dry. Bagged. Then fridge or pantry stored. Soaked and washed again for that days prep in the sink soaking, using two square colanders that fit my sink,( just half the sink volume). The rinds, skins, onion skins, peelings go into the sink and then composted. Second nature now. Clean cutting board gets the veg for chopping/prep.

Organic I still clean but less concern. My farm/garden?. I eat all produce off the plants above ground but do wash root crops.

I guess now we won't be seeing onions in the grocery stores, perhaps for a while.

Sleevendog, I appreciate your concern and posts. These issues don't affect me often so I never think to look at the alerts. (Any onions I might have that aren't for sure from the farm box will for sure get cooked.) It seems like these onions are everywhere, and there are so many illnesses traced back to them that it can't be disregarded as a spot thing. Thank-you for keeping us informed.

I saw this news the other day too. Thanks for posting it here.

I thought it was mainly red onions that were the culprit, but I see I was wrong.

I bought organic yellow onions from Walmart weeks ago and still haven't finished them. No mention of organic in that recall.

Bag is marked Bland Farms, GA.

Think I'm OK...

The re-call is only one very large California farm that sell to all 50 states and Canada. Often re-bagged.

They are not organic so I'm fine.

Your grocery may have taken then from the produce area but a phone call will ease your mind by reaching out to your produce manager.

If shopping today or soon, just buy organic.

I received an email from WalMart that their records showed that I had purchased onions that had been recalled and told me to dispose of them, disinfect the storage area and that I could obtain a refund. One bonus of "Big Brother" watching, eh?

The list continues, mostly deli salads Kroger and Wallmart, FDA link HERE

and
FDA link

sleevendog, Thank you for posting the link. I just sent it to my DIL since they do most of their shopping at Walmart and use a lot of onions. I had posted the first story on my Facebook page but she didn't see it. This has more info anyway, I think.

Sleevendog, thanks so much for keeping us clued in.

For those Massachusetts and NH Market Basket shoppers, their website _ shopmarketbasket.com _ has a section for all recall notices. With regard to onions it reads:

DUE TO POTENTIAL PRESENCE OF SALMONELLA

Important Notes:

MARKET BASKET HAS BEEN ASSURED FROM ONIONS 52 DISTRIBUTOR THAT OUR ONIONS ARE NOT FROM THOMSON INTERNATIONAL, AND ARE NOT AFFECTED BY THIS RECALLThat’s good.

i have red onion seeds/shoots that seem perennial, but I am onion clueless, so never get any onions. Maybe I was suppose to lop off that pretty seed head? In general, I tend to experiment and root the end of things like scallions, onions, carrots, celery, romaine. The scallions are easy to figure out how to snip and use. The Asian red shallots develop tiny shallot looking cloves at the tips of the leaves. The carrots, lettuce and whatever I allow my cottontails to eat. Yeah, they are garden pests, but I am a gimpy Gardner and cannot always follow through. The catbirds and turkeys wolf down my July raspberries. I replant wild carrot for the cottontails (garden is fenced, so I put wild carrots — pulled weeds— elsewhere.

Sleeve, I am also, as energy level permits, a why, how, where personality. I’m experiencing wobbling vertigo with fatigue lately, so haven’t gotten to explore the onion salmonella whys and hows. So, if you found out, please tell us, how do fresh onions get salmonella? You mentioned wash water. So, perhaps the onions are left to soak in wash water used for other things? It could happen with organic onions, but those growers are likely to be much more attentive and aware (my guess).

ETA https://www.shopmarketbasket.com/recalls

I bought more onions today, but I only ever buy organic onions, and so I think I am okay. I sometimes pickle onions, but I haven't done that for a few months, and I guess I will wait until I do that again. Otherwise, the onions that I buy get well-cooked. I like raw onions in some salads (especially red onions), but I have not made any of those salads in a while. Those can wait also.

In a lot of dishes that I make that have onions, I sauté the onions in butter and olive oil until they are translucent, and then I add other vegetables, such as mushrooms, red bell pepper, celery, etc., but only one other vegetable. Then I sauté the onion with the added vegetable some more, until the second vegetable is at the doneness that I want.

Sometimes I add raw onion to rice that I cook in the pressure cooker, and I'm sure it gets completely done in that. I generally do not bother to sauté onion before adding it to rice, although I will if I am sautéing the rice to make fried rice.

I came here after reading the FDA recall on another site. If you scroll down in the link in the OP, you can find a list of all onions recalled by Thomson, including brands, UPC #'s, lot #'s, and pics of the labels. We have a 3# mesh bag of the Kroger yellow onions, but not the lot#s listed. We've had them a month or so, and have used about half of them, to no ill effect. They must have been shipped before May 1.

Latest news report (as of one hour ago) with new list of prepared items tied to Thomson onions.

I only buy organic onions, but when they're loose at the store, there's no telling if someone put the wrong onion in the bin, or if delivery, if the shopper got the right ones. Perhaps if one knows the little labels well enough, but not all of them have the little labels. Does that mean they're what they're supposed yo be? From the farm, I trust that it's they're own organic produce.

What I find strange is that the bags show they are grown in Bakersfield CA (I didn't know anything could grow out there) and Syracuse UT. Maybe they use the same processing plant?

Joseph Wambaugh wrote a 1973 best selling true crime novel, The Onion Field, wherein the scene of murder of two kidnapped detectives takes place in a Bakersfield, California onion field.

In 1979 the book was made into a new noir film. I saw the film — It was chilling.

We have near year-round availability on Watermelons and Onions. In season we also grow Bell Peppers, Cabbage, Napa and Bok Choy. Please see our specific product pages for more information.

From the Bakersfield farm website. ^ Link HERE

I too only buy individual onions, never bags. That said, today at Gelson's market they have a sign saying that their onions are safe and not provided by any of the vendors on the list.

Can they be eaten if cooked I wonder or should I just toss them? I bought red, yellow and shallots from a greengrocer that sells the excess from wholealers. Most everything is organic but often packaged into smaller bags so no telling where the onions came from.

salmonella is killed by heating it to 131 F for one hour, 140 F for a half-hour, or by heating it to 167 F for 10 minutes. When it comes to killingmicroorganisms, both heat level and time affect the equation.

The concern is cross contamination in the raw state. Where they are stored with other things in the pantry or cutting the raw onions, removing the paper shells on a counter and contaminating your cutting board while prepping for cooking.

I only had a couple nice big red ones in my pantry bin. Ran the bin through the dishwasher, tossed my onions in a bowl of soapy water in the sink, rinsed them, then removed the outer layers. then caramelized them. Then found out mine are locally supplied. East coast. And organic.