Egg Salad Is Latest Food to be Found Contaminated

By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on Oct 23, 2006 2:33PM

Spinach and lettuce, meet your new best friend: egg salad. Egg salad is being recalled in 17 states including Illinois. Ballard's Farm Sausage Inc. announced the recall on Saturday because of a possible Listeria monocytogenes bacteria contamination. This slightly different version of the AP story provides a little bit more information about which products are affected, as does the FDA alert. In addition to the Ballard's 12-ounce egg salad, the contaminated salad was also sold packaged as Food City 12-ounce egg salad and Valu Time 11-ounce egg salad. Customers can return the egg salad to receive a refund.

Listeria monocytogenes is the name of the bacteria which can cause Listeriosis, the name of the resulting disease. According to the AP article, this bacteria can "cause serious or fatal infections in young children or elderly people. It also can cause miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant women." The onset time of the serious infection is unknown; it can range from a few days to a few weeks. Symptoms of infection include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, or as Chicagoist likes to discretely call them "the G.I problems." But before we go making everyone worry, know that no one has reported becoming infected from the egg salad yet. We just wanted you to know what to look for in case you chowed down on egg salad while watching not-the-Bears play yesterday.

You can find information on how to protect yourself from Listeria monocytogenes here, and how to safely handle and prepare eggs here.

Image via Bagel Boss.