This report has me more scared than all the other China food scares lately because I eat about 1 pound of fresh ginger every week.

Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), today warned consumers not to eat fresh ginger imported from China after the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s residue monitoring program detected the presence of aldicarb sulfoxide in some batches of imported ginger. Aldicarb sulfoxide is a pesticide that is not approved for use on ginger.

The product is known to have been distributed to Albertson’s stores and Save Mart stores in northern California by Christopher Ranch of Gilroy, California.

CDPH and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are tracing the imported ginger from the importer (Modern Trading Inc. in Alhambra, California) to determine the full distribution of the product and to identify other retail stores that may have received the product.

So far there’s not much word if the affected ginger was sold or distributed outside the State of California. I’m going to play it safe and avoid ginger if I can’t determine its origin.

Tags: ginger, pesticides, imported food