Does your lunch come with a side of plastic? Maybe if you bought a salad from Trader Joe's. The company issued a recall this weekend because of concerns that plastic or glass shards might be in a few of their packaged salads. According to a statement, the items consumers should be cautious of include the: Curried White Chicken Deli Salad, Turkey Cranberry Apple Salad and White Meat Chicken Salad. However, the recalls are not nationwide and are limited to several states.
Related: New Trader Joe's snack Bamba could offer hope for people with peanut allergies
If you purchased the following item:
White Meat Chicken Salad with the SKU 98091
And live in:
Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
If you purchased the following item:
Curried White Chicken Deli Salad with the SKU 96426
And live in:
Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
If you purchased the following item:
Turkey Cranberry Apple Salad
And live in:
Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon or Washington
AZ, CA, NV, UT, ID, OR, WA
Look for a "use by" date of 11/10 through 11/21 as well as USDA inspected code P-40299.
Refunds can be obtained by bringing the salad in question to your local Trader Joe's location.
The company said that consumers who purchased those items but have different inspection codes don't need to worry as they are made in a different facility and are not impacted by the potential health hazard.
According to their statement, all potentially contaminated products have been removed and discarded.
Questions can be directed to the Trader Joe's customer relations team at 626-599-3817.
The latest recall begs the question, how safe are packaged foods? Salads, in particular often spark concern as they can harbor E. coli, bacteria found in food that can cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections and even pneumonia. But as NPR reports, the risk of getting sick isn't that high.
Food Safety Specialist Trevor Suslow told NPR that bagged lettuce didn't have any higher risk for contamination than regular head lettuce. In fact, he said that less than 0.1 percent of bagged salads are likely to be contaminated.
It's not just fresh foods that have been shown to host some unsavory materials. In 2015, Kraft recalled 242,000 cases of macaroni and cheese because metal shards appeared in some of their products, reported Time. In January of that year, 50,000 pounds of meat were recalled by Unibright Foods after metals were found in their packages. Even more alarmingly, due to the quantity, was a recall by Kellogg in 2012 that pulled 2.8 million boxes of cereals from shelves as they also contained metal from a machine used in manufacturing.
While it's beyond your control to ensure everything you eat is always safe, you can reduce your risk by checking for recalls at the USDA and FDA websites.
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