Mealbreakers: Disemboweled Mouse In Salad Mix, Bloodied BLT & 14 Other Food Mishaps

Mealbreaker (n.): a nasty, non-edible surprise found in food while it is being eaten; often lawsuit-provoking, sometimes fabricated, always disgusting.

"Triple-washed" packaged salad mix sounds very clean—how much grit remains after mesclun has been washed twice? But sometimes, it's not enough—as Michigan man John Jones discovered June 29th, when he found a disemboweled mouse in a bag of Dole Tender Garden mix. He, his girlfriend and her seven-year old son had already eaten some of the salad when he found the dead rodent. Jones said he vomited immediately, and then they all went to the ER for a checkup. They then referred the issue to the FDA for investigation.

In news that's slightly less stomach-turning, but possibly more dangerous, a Texas woman—and cancer survivor—ate half of a BLT and fries at a Cracker Barrel in Houston before realizing that there was human blood on the fries and plate. The woman demanded that the worker whose blood it was be tested for HIV. Representatives from Cracker Barrel—while admitting that the there had in fact been an accident in the kitchen—said that the company cannot legally compel him to undergo such testing.

But it's not like this have never happened before; people find gross things in their food all the time. Sometimes it's dangerous, sometimes it's just gross—but it's always a mealbreaker. Here are 14 mealbreakers from the past few years:

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Caterpillar In Weight Watchers Cake

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A dieting woman found a live caterpillar crawling on a Weight Watchers-brand slice of packaged cake in June 2011. She called it gross enough to put her off of cake forever.

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A dieting woman found a live caterpillar crawling on a Weight Watchers-brand slice of packaged cake in June 2011. She called it gross enough to put her off of cake forever.

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Comments

[Tony Sanchez]

02:05 AM on 07/10/2011

The Vesuvius mouse bread was a bit much.

[Idaho dachnik]

12:47 PM on 07/05/2011

Recently I bought a muffin and was munching through and I thought "wow this tastes like medicine" and spit out the wad of muffin that also contained a used Band-aid still wrapped in the shape that would go on a finger. I took it back to the store and they said "Would you like your $1.28 back?" "Sure" I said, "and you guys will be wanting to go over your protocols I bet". They said a report would go back to HQ and I bought some vodka and swished and gulped some. Stuff happens...

[LisaCACO]

11:12 AM on 07/05/2011

rodents in food are part of the manufacturing process. that's why the FDA has rules on just how much rodent droppings can be in a product. sadly, some of the little rascals make it into our food as well. The goal is to keep the numbers of rodents and rodent byproducts low.

insects, well those things occur in both processed and natural foods. just happens.

[Idaho dachnik]

01:21 PM on 07/05/2011

Yes and I want to add that the chemicals that are used to keep our food looking pretty, pesticides and rodent poisons and such are a health threat as much or more than the gross things that show up here and there.

[Gena Dalton]

12:04 AM on 07/05/2011

I had a similar incident....I was drinking a Mick. Ultra beer one Sat night when everytime I set my beer down after a drink, I heard a "chingging" sound. The more I drank of the bottle, the louder it got. After drinking 2/3rd's of the bottle, the noise was stating to worry me, so I began searching everything around me for the source of the sound. In the bottom of my beer bottle was about a 1.5 inch long shard of broken glass. I can't imagine what horrible things would have happened to me had I accidently drank the shard of glass. I went and showed my husband, and then began to worry that I might of drank some smaller, glass grounds or shards. I quit drinking for the night, and just kept a good eye on myself for any changes.....I lived and contacted my lawyer the next day. They said there was not much I could do, and I wasn't willing to persue it too far since I didn't want to be associated with a "glass shard in beer" in the local or national media. I contacted Mick. Ultra, and working as a chemist, I parafilmed the rest of my beer shut. I sent them the undrank portion of my beer along with the glass shard.....I got 2 free t-shirts.....isn't that so nice.

[MMMMarilyn]

03:26 PM on 07/04/2011

The government ALLOWS a certain amount of insect parts in tuna fish, hot dogs and peanut butter.
Check it out.

[MMMMarilyn]

03:24 PM on 07/04/2011

I once found a dead caterpillar in Aunt Millie's spaghetti sauce.
They were running a campaign at the time in NYC TV, "we wouldn't put anything in our sauce that you wouldn't." They never responded to my letter. I even taped the caterpillar to the top of the letter.

[MMMMarilyn]

03:22 PM on 07/04/2011

A tampon in a steak. Really toooo rare.

[matilda81]

06:48 PM on 07/13/2011

Funny! I wonder if that one was true. If it is, that is malicious, but I can't imagine that happening at somewhere like the Waldorf. Wonder if the guy just wanted to get a free meal and make some money. Hmm..

[roc-o-rama]

10:19 AM on 07/04/2011

The humor in irony here would be if the couple who ate the salad were Vegan.

[BannedInBoston]

01:02 AM on 07/04/2011

Mmmmmm! Fried mouse, my favorite!...

[Ajax Johnson]

05:26 PM on 07/03/2011

I'd rather find a worm in my apple than 1/2 a worm.

[Ajax Johnson]

05:24 PM on 07/03/2011

A lovely web page

[onlyway2goisup]

07:38 AM on 07/03/2011

P------o soups packed more protein than I wanted ....it had a pretty green caterpillar...'soup's on!'

[onlyway2goisup]

07:53 AM on 07/03/2011

'IS IT SOUP YET?'

[Marcyshamb]

06:54 AM on 07/03/2011

Back in the early seventies when cakes in the machines were ten cents, I used to get a ring ding every day for snack period. One day, opening one, eating half, I then looked down to see very similar to the pic of the mouse on the bread. I was unable to eat ring dings for decades after. I notified the man who serviced and refilled the machines, but, only so he could inspect them in the future. This was before folks were all into suing companies, etc for every issue. That pic, though, has never left my mine..of my hand holding a half eaten ring ding with a mouse plastered all along its side.

Marcy

[Havana Thinks]

10:21 PM on 07/03/2011

Wow, Marcy, mercy & merci.

[paulawesco]

10:16 PM on 07/02/2011

A "veggie bug" in produce is natural and can be returned or thrown out. But a mouse, rat, caterpillar, roach?, nails, cat hair?,human blood? or any other disgusting sign that a place is just unsuitable for human consumption, is a vomitable situation.

[wadisplace]

10:10 PM on 07/02/2011

When I was in College in 1978, a guy in my dorm worked at a local Pizza joint. He came back from work one night and told not to order their pizza. He told me that some of the other guys that worked there were getting stoned on Pot, catching flys, and putting them on the pizzas before the pizzas went in the oven. Of course, anyone who ordered pizza were usually students, and they were usually having a party in their dorm rooms, and everyone at that party would be High anyways.

[paulawesco]

10:19 PM on 07/02/2011

And what are these fine young men doing today.

[Ajax Johnson]

05:30 PM on 07/03/2011

Get ready to hear from Pizza Hut's Legal Dept.