If you can resist ordering the salsa and guacamole at your favorite restaurant, here's a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that may get your attention.
Nearly 1 out of every 25 restaurant-associated foodborne outbreaks with identified food sources between 1998 and 2008 is traced back to these contaminated foods.
That's more than double the rate during the previous decade, according to the CDC, which presented the finding at the 2010 conference of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
"Fresh salsa and guacamole, especially those served in retail food establishments, may be important vehicles of foodborne infection," Magdalena Kendall, an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education researcher who collaborated on the CDC study, said in a statement.
"Salsa and guacamole often contain diced raw produce including hot peppers, tomatoes and cilantro, each of which has been implicated in past outbreaks."
The CDC has been collecting foodborne disease outbreaks information since 1973. Salsa and guacamole didn't register as a problem until 1984.
The outbreaks accounted for 1.5 percent of all food establishment outbreaks from 1984 to 1997. The number more than doubled to 3.9 percent from 1998 to 2008.
To blame may be inappropriate storage times or temperatures. They were reported in 30 percent of the cases. For another 20 percent, food workers were the source of contamination.
Kendall said anyone preparing these items, at a restauarant or at home, needs to be make sure the raw ingredients are fresh, clean and refrigerated.
Baltimore Sun file photo/Algerina Perna