Trendy Food Delivery Service Issues Recall After Item Causes Severe Stomach Pains

The food delivery service Daily Harvest has recalled its French Lentil + Leek Crumbles meal after it left some customers feeling sick. Daily Harvest is a service that sells meal preparation kits along the same lines as Blue Apron, Hello Fresh and other companies following this popular new format. In this case, customers are furious that they didn’t recall their product sooner.

Daily Harvest announced this recall on Sunday via its website, but according to a report by NBC News, it emailed customers on Friday advising them to throw the meals away. Any customers who didn’t check their email before dinner ran the risk of getting ill. The email reportedly read: “A small number of customers have reported gastrointestinal discomfort after consuming our French Lentil + Leek Crumbles. As included in our cooking instructions, lentils must be thoroughly cooked to an internal temperature of 165°F.”

Sunday’s statement was more direct. It said that the company has “launched an investigation with internal and external experts throughout our supply chain and in accordance with regulatory procedures.” It’s not clear what the exact customers are experiencing is, but it apparently relates to undercooking lentils. According to The Mayo Clinic, the protein lectin can cause sickness and discomfort when lentils are undercooked, but they would need to be eaten in large quantities to do serious long-term damage to consumers.

Still, some Daily Harvest customers are concerned. Luke Tashie shared his recall email with NBC News and described his experience being hospitalized after eating this product. He said that he experienced “extreme liver pain” and is worried he will have long-term damage to those organs. He said: “The surgeons that consulted with me were so perplexed that they seriously considered removing my gallbladder.”

Tashie said that he believes Daily Harvest did not act quickly enough to recall this product, and he’s not alone. A fair amount of criticism hit the company on social media this weekend. Many tried to reach other subscribers with their warnings and some wanted to talk to others experiencing pain to get a better idea of how many had been impacted by this recall.

“Anyone who’s a subscriber to daily harvest rn should perhaps not continue to be,” one person wrote. Another added: “It’s been a wild few days… PSA: if you’re a Daily Harvest subscriber DO NOT EAT/ BUY the Lentil Leek Crumbles. If you have similarly spent time in the ER bc you did, let me know, and take care of your liver.” A third wrote: “Betting right now that the Daily Harvest recall stems from a bad batch of mushrooms. The combination of GI distress, food poisoning symptoms, and acute hepatitis is exactly what happens when you eat a death cap – right down to the timeline people are reporting.”

At the time of this writing, it seems Daily Harvest is still investigating this issue internally. No formal lawsuits or other legal repercussions have been announced.