Turns out it was the peanut butter. The typhimurium type, if you must know.

Minnesota health officials confirmed today that the salmonella strain -- also known as a serotype -- found in a 5-pound container of King Nut peanut butter on Friday is the same as the strain that has wreaked havoc in 410 people in 43 U.S. states, at last count.

King Nut, of Solon, Ohio, had recalled all King Nut and Parnell's Pride peanut butter on Saturday. The brands are not sold in grocery stores, but are distributed to health care institutions, universities, delis, and other facilities that use bulk food products.

This will mark at least the third outbreak linked to contaminated peanut butter: A 2006-07 outbreak sickened more than 600 people in 47 states, and a 1996 outbreak in Australia left more than 500 people with the abdominal cramping, diarrhea, and fever typical of the illness.

The source of the salmonella outbreak that has sickened 399 people in 42 states since September may be peanut butter, Minnesota health officials said Friday. The Washington Post reports that the officials found salmonella in a five-pound container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter. The product is sold to "long-term care facilities, hospitals, schools, universities, restaurants, delis, cafeterias and bakeries, but is not sold retail in grocery stores."

King Nut, of Solon, Ohio, said in a statement yesterday that it was recalling all of its peanut butter manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America, of Lynchburg, Va., including the Parnell's Pride brand.

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the U.S. has seen more cases of measles than at any time since 1996 in the last six months—and its stories like that that have caught the attention of actress Amanda Peet, among others concerned about the resurgence. In Europe and the U.K., children are dying of measles. Declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, and as recently as the early 1960s, as many as 500 children in this country died every year from the viral disease, characterized by a red rash and highly infectious cough.

The first outbreak of 2008 came via a 7-year-old boy from San Diego, who traveled to Switzerland with his family. He had not been vaccinated and contracted measles, which he subsequently passed on to schoolmates, infants at his doctor's office and children around him in the hospital.

Forget tomatoes. At least for now. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a direct link to hot peppers as a culprit in the salmonella poisoning that has sickened 1,250 people in the U.S. and Canada since April. FDA investigators announced Monday that they found a strain of salmonella that matched the one in victims in a single jalapeño pepper grown in Mexico.

The contaminated pepper was uncovered at the Argricola Zaragoza, Inc., packaging facility in McAllen, Tex., a town near the border. The firm has recalled all jalapeños distributed since June 30. Product is known to have shipped to customers in Georgia and Texas. Still unknown: whether the pepper was contaminated on the farm where it was grown, in the packaging facility–or while it was being transported from one to the other.

The Food and Drug Administration this week gave the all-clear to tomatoes but warned that some varieties of hot peppers were still suspect in a salmonella outbreak that has sickened 1,200 people in some 40 states and Canada. This news came as a relief to the beleaguered tomato industry, which was considered an early culprit in the scare that left victims with symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting and fevers. The FDA in early June warned consumers to avoid certain varieties of tomatoes, which reportedly cost the industry $100 million in lost sales even though investigators failed to find salmonella on any farms they checked. The FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added jalapeño and serrano peppers as well as cilantro to the list of possible salmonella sources last week. These foods have not yet been cleared, although, so far, they have only recommended that vulnerable populations—infants, elderly persons and individuals with compromised immune systems—avoid them. According to the FDA, investigators have zeroed in on a pepper-packing outfit in Mexico that it believes may be responsible for at least a portion of the outbreak. The initial source of the contamination, however, has not been identified.

(Image: © iStockphoto/Skip ODonnell)