Broccoli from Stop & Shop, Giant and Martin’s stores are being recalled

Bags of Private Brand Frozen Broccoli Cuts sold at Stop & Shop, Giant and Martin’s stores are being recalled after a store sample the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection’s Food and Standards Division pulled tested positive for listeria.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, pregnant women, newborn babies, older adults and people with weakened immune systems are the most at risk to develop listeriosis, a serious infection caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, so mamas should definitely double check the broccoli before tossing it in a stir fry.

The recalled broccoli comes in 16-ounce bags with a March 15, 2020, best-by date and the UPC 068826700926. According to the Stop and Shop website, “customers may return impacted product for a full refund.”

With the recent egg recall, and the romaine troubles, it might seem like food getting less safe, but according to a professor of food safety at Cornell University’s food science department, parents shouldn’t be freaked out even though we’re seeing more recalls than we used to.

“[It] doesn’t mean our food is less safe,” he told CBC News. “It’s the opposite. What happened over the last 20 years and really accelerated over the last two years is the use of completely new DNA fingerprinting tools to detect disease outbreaks,” he said.

“Today, we are 100 times more likely to detect an outbreak than we were 20 years ago,” he continues.

People are checking our food supply all the time, so food safety experts say we shouldn’t get too anxious about frequent recalls, and just remind ourselves that a recall is actually way better than not knowing. “We’re incredibly proud that our staff was able to catch this during a routine sampling,” says Connecticut’s Consumer Protection Commissioner Michelle H. Seagull.

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