How to React to a “Bug” or any Foreign Object Found Alive or Dead in Your Food

Can you Get Food Poisoning From an Insect, or Foreign Object?

Every once in a while some really exceptional story makes the news of someone finding something especially awful or unlikely in their food at some restaurant. One relatively recent story was during the summer of 2009 when a German tourist dining at a steak house inside the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel pulled a used tampon from his mouth. It was most likely from the spinach dish he ordered. It made the news just about everywhere.

These stories catch our interest because we all have, or know someone who has found something exceptional in a meal from a restaurant and we can sympathize with this person’s disgust, anger or other emotions felt from an experience that could be anywhere from dangerous to just plain revolting.

A foreign object is really any non-food object that is not supposed to be there. Finding a foreign object is not uncommon in a busy restaurant. As a long time health inspector, responsible for inspecting retail food facilities and responding to almost any complaint, this was a fairly common one. Some of the ones I have responded to include bugs (commonly flies, cockroaches, worms), fingernails, gloves, hairs (human and animal), bones where they weren’t supposed to be, chips of glass, chips from plates, cups, wood chips or pieces of a broken utensil. Though these objects are mostly not intentionally introduced into your food, they are nonetheless dangerous and a violation of the health & safety code.

Most of the time I was unable to confirm or determine the source of the object and was left with advising the management and employees of the complaint and to take measures to prevent it in the future. Although with cockroaches and flies, if it made into your food, there is a much better chance that the inspector will be able to find more and take more formal action on the facility, such as closure and / or permit suspension. If the source was found, such as a broken dish, utensil etc., I immediately had them dispose of this item and would note this on an inspection report as a violation.

Recommended Actions To Take

Where does this leave you, the customer when you find something out of ordinary in your food? Here is what I recommend and I would do (and have done) when confronted with a foreign object in your food:

• Your initial reaction might be to take it out of the food and place it in plain site on a napkin or on the table to display for the server to see. The best course it to not move the object or do anything that would give anyone cause to believe you purposely put the object in your food.

• Immediately bring it to the attention of not just your server, but the management, before it is taken away.

• Request a refund on the food and an explanation as to how it could have gotten there.

• Make a call that day or the next to your local Environmental Health Food Inspection program describing your encounter. Be ready with the business name and address and to give your name if you would like to be called back. Most agencies do keep your information confidential and only request your information so they can get back to you with the inspection results. Depending on the severity they may address your complaint by the next day.

By far the majority of food poisonings in the U.S. and other western countries are caused by microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, and parasites to a less degree). It is rare for a food infesting insect or foreign object to cause an illness (though certainly possible).

Although rarely the source of illness, foreign objects are none the less relatively common in a busy restaurant where hundreds if not a thousands of meals are prepared everyday. Just take care, as I do to do a brief inspection of your food prior to taking a bite! You could save yourself a trip to the doctor, if not the dentist.