Whoa! What’s that in my food?!

Photo sent in by viewer: Pipe in bag of food?

This past week I received an interesting photo from a woman who claimed she found a small pipe in a bag of popcorn chicken she bought at a local store.

Have you ever found something wicked in your food at a restaurant or in some packaging?

I’ve seen numerous emails over my time as a reporter from viewers who claim they found foreign objects like:

-Maggots in milk

-Tooth in a burrito

-Rat carcass in bag of dog food

-A ball of hair in a can of soup.

They may all be true or maybe some of them could be hoaxes.  I don’t know.

(Personal story:  One time I bit into a sandwich at a restaurant in Albuquerque.   The cook forgot to remove paper that was wrapped around the turkey.  I thought it tasted funny……. Cool story, bro.)

Generally I stay away from such stories for broadcast because it’s so hard to prove the company or business is actually responsible.

It’s not my intent to immediately cast doubt on such claims….I just have to be mindful there are people out there who may set up such scenarios for attention or to extort money from a business.

It’s happened before.

Like the woman who claimed there was a human finger in her chili from Wendy’s. She got arrested.

And the Pepsi Syringe scare back in the early 1990’s. Several people got arrested too.

The original Pepsi syringe claim turned out to be false and several other people were hit with fraud charges.

Unfortunately many media outlets across the country bought these stories and ran with them, fueling even more lying opportunists with an easy story.

If you do encounter food in an item or packaging, it’s best to file a complaint with the store and/or company behind the product.

At a restaurant, you can file a complaint with the local health department if something really grosses you out.