Tainted Fruit Bars, Nuggets Get Yanked

EGGS, CHICKENS, MAMEY—OH MY!

Recent mega food recalls of contaminated ground beef and eggs (half a billion!) have overshadowed the recall of two frozen food items.

The Associated Press reports that Paleta California Co. of Santa Springs, Calif., recalled its mamey (mah-MAY) frozen fruit bars because of a possible link to a rare U.S. outbreak of typhoid fever and Perdue Farms Inc., Perry, Ga., recalled thousands of pounds of frozen chicken nugget products that officials say could contain foreign materials.

First, let’s look at the frozen fruit bars. Paleta California says the Mamey Supreme Cream Bars were distributed only in Southern California.

The company says the frozen fruit bars were sold in retail stores and have the following UPC number: 636418002000.

The company says the frozen fruit bars were made from contaminated mamey pulp that Goya Foods Inc. voluntarily recalled on Aug. 12, after it was linked to a typhoid fever outbreak in California and Nevada. So far no illnesses have been reported from the mamey fruit bars.

Mamey, or zapote (zah-POH-teh), is a fruit popular in Latin America and the Caribbean.

AP reports that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced that the Perdue Farms chicken products include 1-pound, 13-ounce bags of Great Value Fully Cooked Chicken Nuggets.

Officials are recalling approximately 91,872 pounds of the nuggets after the privately held company discovered small pieces of blue plastic, following consumer complaints.

Agriculture authorities have not gotten any reports of injuries.

Each bag bears the establishment number P-33944 as well as a case code of 80990A0160.

TFFG SAYS: Yikes! Imagine noshing on some chicken nuggets chock-a-block full of “foreign objects” (what the ---?) while you whip up a batch of meatloaf with both E. coli contaminated ground beef and eggs and then top it all off with a tasty, cool typhoid fever-inducing mamey bar (“supreme,” no less). Talk about double/quadruple indemnity. It’s like “choose your poison”—four different ways! I still can’t get over that egg situation. And it’s really more than HALF A BILLION. The real tally is 550 million. That’s HALF A BILLION eggs plus another 50 million! A recall of 50 million would be completely over the top, but 5 – 5 – 0 million?! That’s just plain criminal.