90 Tons Of Food Recalled For E.Coli

Anyone who's ever had food poisoning knows it's a supremely unpleasant experience, and one that you always secretly believe will only occur after an ill-advised trip to the sketchy gyro place around the corner. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Over 90 tons of sandwiches and prepared salads made by the California-based (and unfortunately named) Glass Onion Catering company are being recalled after 26 people in three separate states got sick by a bacterial strain of E. coli linked to its products, officials said Sunday. Yum.

The "gourmet" products were supplied to Walgreens, Whole Foods, Delish, Trader Joe’s and, er, Super Fresh Goods. The outbreak too place in states ranging from California to Texas, Oregon, and Nevada, and started causing issues at the end of last month. Apparently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service began monitoring a group of people who'd been sickened by E. coli O157:H7 on Oct. 29, and was told soon after by U.S. Food and Drug Administration that more people had been reported ill after eating some prepared chicken salads.

The particular strain of E.Coli found in the products is a potentially deadly type of bacteria that, according to the FSIS, can cause dehydration, "bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps" for anything from two to eight days after eating the contaminated food source. While a lot of people will feel back to normal within a week, in some cases, the bacterium can develop into a type of kidney failure.

The Richmond-based catering company have been forced to recall roughly 181,620 pounds of salads and wraps that contain cooked chicken and ham, but they're still not sure what the source of the contamination was exactly. It's pretty unusual to find that particular strain of E.Coli in a chicken product — usually, people who get ill from eating chicken have been poisoned by salmonella, such as was the case of Foster Farms chicken in California, which made over 300 people sick.

A week ago, an FDA study revealed that seven percent of spices contain traces of salmonella, and another 12 percent of imported spices are contaminated with “filth” — including rodent hairs, feces, and insect legs.

Who's up for a wrap?