Fresh Express Recalls Batch After Dead Bat Found In Prepackaged Salad

An unwelcome discovery by a couple of salad eaters included a sordid new ingredient.

On Saturday, the company Fresh Express announced a precautionary recall of some of its prepackaged salad mixes, after two people in Florida say they found a dead bat in their leafy greens.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the two had eaten some of the product before finding the decomposed organism in a 5-ounce clear container of the Organic Marketside Spring Mix.

But "out of an abundance of caution," Fresh Express says in a statement, all Organic Marketside Spring Mix salads from that production lot are subject to the recall.

The mix in question was distributed exclusively to Walmart stores located in the Southeastern region of the U.S. Walmart has since pulled the product from its shelves, the company adds, and no other Marketside salads are included in the recall.

Florida health officials, the FDA and the CDC have launched an investigation into the matter.

Due to the animal's decayed condition, the CDC couldn't immediately rule out whether this particular bat carried rabies, but recommended the two people who ate the contaminated salad receive treatment for the disease.

"Both people report being in good health and neither has any signs of rabies," the CDC says.

The deadly rabies virus is endemic to bats across the U.S., but is rarely contracted by humans. And, as the CDC points out, transmission through consuming an infected animal is "extremely uncommon." The agency adds that it hasn't heard of any other cases of bat material found in packaged salads.

"People who have eaten the recalled salad product and did not find animal material are not at risk and do not need to contact their health department," the CDC advises.

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