How confident are you that the products you and your family ingest are safe and sanitary? If you’re thinking about things like fruit, meat, vegetables and seafood, often times you can detect if there’s something wrong with the product, based on how it looks or smells.
It’s what you can’t see sometimes that presents the biggest dangers.
A Wisconsin woman, Suzanne Hogue, was horrified to see what she found in her son’s juice box. After her autistic son complained about his juice not tasting right, Hogue began investigating. When she cut the juice box open, she found a large amount of mold inside. According to Fox6now.com, Hogue said the mold “took up half of the juice box and at that point it was brown, black, green. I didn’t even know what I was looking at first. I was so shocked when I opened it up. I had no idea what it was. It was so repulsive and it had an odor.”
Hogue’s experience is hardly isolated. A quick search online will reveal hundreds of complaints about mold and other less than desirable things inside of food products. Food and health experts say that it can happen to any food once it has been exposed to air. The juice box likely had an imperceptible hole which allowed air to penetrate. So this issue may be less about the actual food or drink and more about packaging.
So, what can you do to protect yourself and your family? When it comes to boxed and canned drinks, staples in many families, you can put the product to the smell test. If you’re still unsure, pour the drink out into a cup first, so you can see what’s in it.
Health officials said that ingestion of mold is not likely to lead to any severe sickness, but a parent should wait about a week to see if any illness develops. Despite that, no one wants to drink mold. Capri Sun, a popular bagged juice manufacturer, has just introduced a box drink with a clear bottom, giving parents and children a little extra peace of mind.
The attorneys at The Wilton Law Firm have been protecting consumer rights for over 20 years. If you have a product liability issue, contact us today for a free consultation.
