Prepackaged salads are often an extremely convenient way to have your dinner. But sometimes there’s a price to pay for your comfort. Believe it or not, sometimes that price is finding a frog or even a bat in your package. A new study tallied the events.
I like Han Solo’s line about “never tell me the odds”. But it’s oddly naive if you think about it because being informed about things is always something positive. As long as you inform yourself from the right sources. A new scientific study published in Science of the Total Environment reviewed the media coverage on the occurrence of animals found in prepackaged salads. The result might have you say…
Until now, I really thought that catching salmonella and getting super sick was the ultimate consequence and risk of having a prepackaged salad when I am exhausted after a full day’s work. Apparently, I was wrong because the biggest risk is finding a dead bat or maybe a live frog or lizard in your package! Gulp!
How much more will prepackaged salads scare us?
According to the study, there have been 40 incidents of finding vertebrates in prepackaged salads ever since 2003. Of these, 38 occurred in the past 10 years. One of the animals found was a dead bat. In 10 of the incidents, the animals were still alive, which to me is the scariest thing of all!
Back in 2017, a Californian woman found a live frog in her target salad.
Researchers said that most of the animals were frogs and lizards found in prepackaged salads, specifically non-organic salads.
“This is the first review quantifying incidents of vertebrates found by customers in prepackaged produce, yet it remains unclear whether these occurrences indicate a food-safety crisis or a complaint against food quality,” the study says.
Well, if I ever find one of those, it will finally be clear to me that I might be a Disney princess in disguise. Look out, world! I dearly hope the frog will also talk.
Featured image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
