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You better think twice next time you bite into what appears to be a nutritious Luna bar. The Los Angeles Times recently had an article stating that Clif Bar and Co. announced a recall of Clif and Luna brand bars that contain peanut butter. The decision was based on the FDA's announcement that traces of Salmonella Typhimurium contamination have been found in a plant owned by Peanut Corp. of America. The plant which manufactures peanut butter and peanut paste supplies companies nationwide. To find out what other food products have been affected, you can view an online list put together by the FDA.
While food shopping yesterday, I noticed a shelf full of Luna bars. I can't help but to feel mildly skeptical of the FDA. Just how seriously should we take this Salmonella scare? After doing some online research yesterday, I found out that there are approximately 40,000 cases of Salmonella infection reported every year in the U.S. In the summer of 2008, there was a Salmonella outbreak that seemed to have been caused by fresh jalapeño and serrano peppers from Mexico, raw tomatoes, and fresh cilantro. The highest amount of cases occured in Texas and New Mexico.
Originally, I thought that Salmonella was only present in raw meat, in particular poultry. In turns out that any foods that have been in contact with raw meat could also contain the bacteria. I'm just perplexed as to how it could have ended up in this peanut butter plant. Does it say something about the sanitary conditions of the plant or could it have happened anywhere?
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1-25-2009 @12:22PM Rick said... Okay, so why single out Clif and Luna bars? This is a market-wide incident that includes hundreds of products that have been recalled, not just these two.
For the media to single out two specific brands does nothing but spin negative press against whatever brands they mention, even when it is not their initial problem but one of their suppliers.
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1-25-2009 @12:29PM Laura said... As someone who contracted salmonella from a Luna bar, I'm glad for the recall. Yes, it seems that the recalls are a little over the top, but the contamination is real.
And it say a whole lot of not so nice things about the processing chain...
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1-25-2009 @1:23PM Alex said... I just looked up some nutritional information for Luna Bars and it seems that they're about 1/12 fat (the bars are 48g and for some there is 4g of fat) and about a quarter sugar (12g). I know that different flavours have different values but I'm not convinced consumers always make that distinction. I'm not really sure how I'd describe that amount of sugar in partiuclar as "healthy" ...
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1-25-2009 @4:41PM LizAndrsn said... Now that the Election is over and a New Guy is in office, perhaps we can get back to the important job of running this country right. Food contamination shouldn't be acceptable, not in the 21st Century and not in this country. Time to speak up and demand better y'all.
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1-26-2009 @8:50AM Amanda said... Your headline makes it sound like Luna/Clif bars should be put in the same category as the Baskin Robbins Oreo Shake. I understand that you are trying to grab people's attention, but they also don't always read the rest of an article and focus only on what they think the headline tells them. Also, many other bars are being recalled. Two Trader Joe's granola bars were recalled as well as Lara Bars for containing peanuts that may have been contaminated.
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1-26-2009 @1:27PM Elizabeth said... Salmonella is turning up more frequently on produce and other items due to contamination of irrigation water or contaminated runoff. In the previous instance of peanut butter contamination, the contamination occurred after the peanuts were roasted, and it came from a leaky roof.
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1-27-2009 @2:57PM Nicole S. said... I'm with Rick and Amanda -- this is a misleading post. This is an industry wide recall of many, many products. If you want to debate the actual nutrition of the bars, then let's do that, otherwise this post is way off base.
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