Time to Can Your Canned Foods Again - ANOTHER Botulism Scare
What is going on with the canned food industry? First, there was a story last month about the first botulism contamination in commercially canned products in over three decades. The culprit that time was chili made by Castleberry's.
Then, nearly two weeks later, we found that many of those same infected Castleberry chili cans were still on many store shelves. Not only that, the bacteria inside some of the cans had multiplied to the point that the cans were literally exploding in the store.
Well, now we have a whole new botulism scare on our hands. This time the potential source is 15,000 cases of French Style Green Beans in 14.5 ounce cans made by Lakeside Foods. Unlike the chili case where a few people were confirmed to have been made ill as a direct result of eating the contents, no one has yet been harmed by the green beans.
The food producer found food safety had been breached during a routine inspection: some cans may have been underprocessed (not enough heat) and some may have leaks, allowing possible contamination by dangerous organisms such as Clostridium botulinum which causes botulism, a potentially deadly form of food poisoning.
Hopefully, this turns out to be nothing more than a precautionary measure, but just in case, check your cans against the following criteria:
- States that cans were shipped to: AL, AZ, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MI, MO, MS, NC, NY, OH, OK, TN, TX, VA, WI
- Can codes: EAA5247, EAA5257, EAA5267, EAA5277, EAB5247, EAB5257, ECA5207, ECA5217, ECA5227, ECA5297, ECB5207, ECB5217, ECB5227 and ECB5307
- Brand names: ALBERTSON'S, HAPPY HARVEST, BEST CHOICE, FOOD CLUB, BOGOPA, VALU TIME, HILL COUNTRY FARE, HEB, LAURA LYNN, KROGER, NO NAME, NORTH PRIDE, SCHNUCKS, SHOP N SAVE, SHOPPERS VALU, CUB FOODS, DIERBERGS, FLAVORITE, IGA, and THRIFTY MAID
Let's hope this is the last potential botulism scare for the canned food industry for a while, or at least for this week…
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I know this is old but I was actually one of the people that this recall affected but luckily I realized it before I ate it and got sick.