Over 256,000 Pounds Of Canned Beef Stew Recalled Due To Wood Fragments
Hormel Foods Corporation is voltartarily recalling around 256,185 pounds of its Dinty Moore canned ... More beef stew product. (Photo: Getty)
Three consumers had a beef about this stew. Apparently, they had found pieces of wood in their Dinty Moore Beef Stew and complained to the makers of the stew, Hormel Foods Corporation. Rather than have anyone else potentially stew over the situation, Hormel decided then to recall voluntarily around 256,185 pounds of its canned beef stew product, according to an announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The recall affects a specific lot of Dinty Moore Beef Stew that was packaged in 20 ounce cans on February 4, 2025. These cans were shipped across the U.S. If you want to determine whether your Dinty Moore Beef Stew is affected by the recall, the canned answer is look for a lot code of 'T02045', an establishment number of 'EST 199G' and a 'Best By' date of "FEB 2028.'
If you find such things when you are on the can, naturally, your 'best by date' for that should be never. You should either safely discard the product or return it for a refund. Even though there haven't yet been any confirmed reports of injuries from consuming the product, you 'wood' not want to risk it yourself.
In general, it's not a good idea to eat wood if you are a human or even if you are a woodchuck for that matter. Chewing on wood could end up damaging your teeth and gums. Plus, humans lack the digestive enzymes to break down wood. So if you swallow some wood, it's going to remain roughly the same shape and form straight through your gastrointestinal tract.
This is similar to situation where glass was found in bread, leading to a recall, which I wrote about in Forbes earlier this month. Size (and shape) matter here. If the piece is small enough and not too sharp, it will likely just pass through your system until a few days later where poop there is.
However, the risk is that the wood will get caught up somewhere in your GI tract, causing damage to the lining of your GI tract or blockage. This could lead to some type of infection as well. Therefore, if you are concerned about having ingested wood, contact a healthcare professional to get some guidance.
You certainly want to seek medical advice if you have symptoms such as chest or abdominal pain, nausea or vomiting. Other possible symptoms of a potential problem could be changes in bowel movements or body temperature like a fever. Since another potential risk is an allergic reaction to something in the wood, be aware of any itching, rashes, difficulty breathing or any sign that you may be having such a reaction.
Chew marks on a pencil may or may not be a sign of lignophagia (Photo: Getty)
Now if you are thinking, 'wood fragments, yum,' there is something called lignophagia, where you actually like to chew on or eat wood. It comes from a combo of the Latin word 'lignum,' which stands for "wood", and the Greek word 'phago,' which means to 'to eat.' Another term for eating wood is 'xylophagia' when it occurs in human. Lignophagia is a type of pica disorder. Pica is where you want to chew or eat something that has no nutritional value.
You may remember as a kid being handed pencils with bite marks all over them. That's assuming that you are old enough to know what a pencil is. Such bite marks may or may not have been a sign of lignophagia, depending on whether there was a specific preference for wood versus just chewing on something nervously or out of habit.
Nevertheless, one should not be encouraged to chew on or eat wood at any time for all the aforementioned reasons. The recall notice didn't specify the size of the wood fragments that were found in the beef stew. Presumably they weren't like entire planks of wood, since those would have been tough to fit inside a can. So, this situation may end up not having any adverse health effects. But it's still a good idea to check your beef stew and the can from where it came.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
21 minutes ago
- Forbes
Affirm Stock Down As Klarna's Buy Now, Pay Later Credit Loss Rises 17%
Despite recent growth, some investors see a darker future for the industry Affirm Holdings stock is down 17% in 2025 after predicting lower-than-expected growth for the current quarter While the default rate on Buy Now, Pay Later loans rises, industry executives say they're not worried A weak first quarter gross domestic product report bodes ill for the industry Shares of Affirm Holdings — a provider of Buy Now, Pay Later loans — have lost 17% of their value in 2025, according to Google Finance. In the last three years, Affirm stock has risen considerably — rising 126% to $52 a share — and the industry has expanded faster than 50% annually. After reporting solid revenue and profit growth in the company's third quarter — while issuing a weak forecast — is the stock a bargain? Earlier this month, the stock fell 13% on Affirm's weak forecast and its bet on 0% loans, according to CNBC. The bearish case is bolstered by rising BNPL default rates at Klarna and a weaker economy which could add to the bad loans. Bulls admire the company's industry leadership and long-term approach to running the company — a view Affirm reinforces. 'It took consumers and merchants and sort of the universe about a decade to figure out what we are and just how different and important what we have found to work really is,' Affirm founder and CEO Max Levchin told CNBC. Wall Street sees the stock as significantly undervalued. Affirm shares trade 29% below $67.18 — the average price target of of 21 Wall Street analysts, TipRanks wrote. In Affirm's fiscal third quarter, revenue met expectations, profit exceeded them and its revenue forecast for the fourth quarter fell short. Here are the key numbers: Affirm's online loans rise or fall depending on the level of consumer spending on electronics, apparel and travel. The company has been aiming to add new customers — reaching 22 million in the third quarter, a 10% growth rate, noted CNBC. Through partnerships with Apple , Amazon and Shopify, GMV for The Affirm Card rose 115% from the year before while the number of active cardholders more than doubled. business is closely tied to consumer spending, as its online loan offering has become popular with sellers of electronics, apparel and travel. The company is also offering 0% interest loans in which merchants — and sometimes manufacturers — boost sales by subsidizing borrowing costs to drive sales. Such loans increased 44% — serving as an alternative to a traditional merchant discount. 'It may be an expensive net discount rate, but it's better than 10% off,' Affirm Chief Financial Officer Rob O'Hare told CNBC. Affirm says these loans extend the lifetime value of its customers. 'Every time we sign someone new through a 0% promo, some number of months or quarters from now, that's a prime candidate for the Affirm Card, and that's a lifetime value booster,' Levchin said on the company's Q3 earnings call. The growth in BNPL loans has been significant in recent years. This growth has drawn new investment into the industry and loan default rates are rising for some large participants. Since 2021, the BNPL business has accelerated at a 55% average annual rate from $97 billion, according to my June 2022 Forbes post, to $560 billion in 2025, according to Research and Markets. To finance that growth, Affirm has been securitizing — bundling and selling — some 30% of its loans. More recently, the rise of private credit has enabled Affirm to sell loans directly to institutions. These include insurers such as Liberty Mutual and Prudential. Moreover, this year private credit firm Sixth Street initiated a three year deal to buy $4 billion of Affirm's loans, according to the Wall Street Journal. Recent data suggest BNPL credit problems could rise. How so? Nearly two-thirds of BNPL loans went to borrowers with risky credit scores, according to a January report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 'Americans were using 'buy now, pay later' as a Band-Aid on top of their credit card debt,' Julie Margetta Morgan, a former CFPB official who is now president of the Century Foundation, told the Times. 'We look at it as a kind of bellwether of risks to the overall economy,' she added. BNPL providers downplay these risks. For example, Klarna — the privately held Stockholm-based BNPL provider which recently paused its IPO — suffered a 17% rise in credit losses in May. Klarna said the losses were trivial. 'There's nothing troubling or worrisome from this data,' company spokeswoman Clare Nordstrom told the New York Times. Affirm was similarly upbeat. 'We really aren't seeing anything we would label as signs of stress with our borrowers,' O'Hare said, according to the Times. BNPL customers would be especially vulnerable if the economy worsened — which is why during the Biden era, the CFPB 'called for measures to safeguard them,' the Times wrote. Unfortunately, the economy contracted in the first quarter of 2025 — with gross domestic product falling at a 0.2% rate, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. As U.S. household finances get worse, BNPL consumers and providers could suffer. 'Consumers are going to be squeezed and more reliant on these products,' Morgan explained to the Times, 'and the companies are being offered a free pass to construct those products in ways that are the most profitable to them.' Given the 29% upside implicit in Affirm's price target, the bulls may prevail over the bears. Affirm bears argue the company's profitability fell short of expectations because the lower growth in GMV due to a surge in 0% APR loans was not sufficient to offset their revenue less transaction costs. This is why Affirm fell short of investor expectations. The rise in 0% loans 'led to a lower take rate and RLTC margin than most forecasts,' Citizens wrote, according to CNBC. Two other analysts remain bullish on Affirm. Goldman called the company a 'strong category leader in BNPL and a share gainer vs. legacy credit providers,' noted CNBC. Barclays is bullish on recent partnerships such as the one between Affirm and Costco. Affirm sees consumers continuing to spend despite uncertainty. 'People are stressed out about the economy, yet they're shopping, they're buying, and they're paying their bills — at least they're paying their bills back to us on time,' Levchin told CNBC.
Associated Press
21 minutes ago
- Associated Press
New Orleans holds burial of repatriated African Americans whose skulls were used in racist research
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans celebrated the return and burial of the remains of 19 African American people whose skulls had been sent to Germany for racist research practices in the 19th century. On Saturday, a multifaith memorial service including a jazz funeral, one of the city's most distinct traditions, paid tribute to the humanity of those coming home to their final resting place at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial. 'We ironically know these 19 because of the horrific thing that happened to them after their death, the desecration of their bodies,' said Monique Guillory, president of Dillard University, a historically Black private liberal arts college, which spearheaded the receipt of the remains on behalf of the city. 'This is actually an opportunity for us to recognize and commemorate the humanity of all of these individuals who would have been denied, you know, such a respectful send-off and final burial.' The 19 people are all believed to have passed away from natural causes between 1871 and 1872 at Charity Hospital, which served people of all races and classes in New Orleans during the height of white supremacist oppression in the 1800s. The hospital shuttered following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The remains sat in 19 wooden boxes in the university's chapel during a service Saturday that also included music from the Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective. A New Orleans physician provided the skulls of the 19 people to a German researcher engaged phrenological studies — the debunked belief that a person's skull could determine innate racial characteristics. 'All kinds of experiments were done on Black bodies living and dead,' said Dr. Eva Baham, a historian who led Dillard University's efforts to repatriate the individuals' remains. 'People who had no agency over themselves.' In 2023, the University of Leipzig in Germany reached out to the City of New Orleans to find a way to return the remains, Guillory said. The University of Leipzig did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 'It is a demonstration of our own morality here in New Orleans and in Leipzig with the professors there who wanted to do something to restore the dignity of these people,' Baham said. Dillard University researchers say more digging remains to be done, including to try and track down possible descendants. They believe it is likely that some of the people had been recently freed from slavery. 'These were really poor, indigent people in the end of the 19th century, but ... they had names, they had addresses, they walked the streets of the city that we love,' Guillory said. 'We all deserve a recognition of our humanity and the value of our lives.'
CBS News
22 minutes ago
- CBS News
Colorado crash survivor shares story of deadly collision: 'We shouldn't be here'
It is photos of the wreckage that are among many reminders of how Colorado resident Magda Navarro's life has completely changed after a deadly crash earlier this year. "I don't know, I have a lot of emotions," said Navarro. "It's crazy how you feel untouchable in life, and then things like this happen." Navarro sat down with CBS Colorado more than a month after she was severely injured in a multi-vehicle crash on I-270. "I've had this brace since I've been in the accident," she said. CBS It was after 6 p.m. on April 8, when Navarro was driving eastbound on I-270 with her two sons to celebrate her second day at a new job. "All of a sudden, I just feel this really bad impact and my son yelling, 'Mom'," said Navarro. A gray Dodge Durango struck Navarro's red Buick and at least one other car. Navarro's car flipped over with her and her children inside. Magda Navarro "I was so scared that the car was going to go up in flames or explode and my kids be in there," she said. "I was in just so much pain that I couldn't even help my kids to get out of the car." Navarro said she was in and out of consciousness, but her children were eventually rescued by paramedics with minor injuries. After she was rescued, Navarro spent the next 10 days in the hospital with multiple fractured discs, torn ligaments, and a traumatic brain injury. "Thank god I don't have any bleeding or anything like that, but my brain is still swollen," said Navarro. Magda Navarro Crashes are not uncommon on I-270. Earlier this week, another accident occurred on I-270 between U.S. 6 and Quebec Street. It could still take another year for the I-270 Corridor Improvement Study to complete its environmental study before work can begin to improve traffic flow and safety on the interstate. Navarro, however, said it is going to take a lot more accountability from drivers on the road to improve traffic behavior. "If anything, I would just say, please, before you drink and drive or speed, just take into consideration that you're not only putting your life at risk but you're putting other people's as well," said Navarro. She said it is frustrating that she may never know why this crash happened, since the driver of the Dodge died at the scene. "As bad as this accident was, we shouldn't be here," said Navarro. CBS Now, she's grappling with the fear she could end up paralyzed if a disc on her upper spine doesn't heal, while at the same time trying to crowdfund and support her family amid this new normal. "If you can't help your children out when they're most in need, you feel worthless," Navarro shared. Still, she remains hopeful more tragedies like this do not happen to other people on the road. "It was terrifying. It was a big eye-opener for me," said Navarro.
