Things Fall Apart: Think Tahini is Healthy? Not the Salmonella Flavor!

Karen Murphy — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:58:00 GMT

Tahini. Yum, healthy, right? A wonderful addition to hummous, an adored dippage item when consumed by preschoolers on their organic baby carrots, and it makes great salad dressing.

Not when it's contaminated by Salmonella. The recalled brands are MaraNatha Raw Sesame Tahini, Organic Raosted Sesame Tahini, Natural Raw Sesame Tahini and Natural Roasted Sesame Tahini. Ugh. I have a jar of this in my refrigerator. We ate some already. I'm not feeling so well, can I go home now? [cough] All the affected jars have a use-by date of 10/02/07 or earlier. Call 1-800-883-8312 for more information.

Seriously. Oh. Also you need to be worried about Whole Foods 365 Every Day Value brand Sesame Tahini. It's full of Salmonella too. No toll-free number here, but you can always call 512-477-5566 for more information.

On both sites is this lovely reminder: "Consumption of a food contaminated with Salmonella may cause symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Long-term complications may include severe arthritis. These symptoms could be serious or life-threatening in young children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems."

I think this now provides an explanation for the previously-unexplained GI symptoms we all experienced recently. Excuse me, I have to go deal with the jar of poison that's in my fridge.

Strollerderby : maranatha

Things Fall Apart: Think Tahini is Healthy? Not the Salmonella Flavor!