the daily harvest situation is complicated.
at first, daily harvest claimed that people were getting sick from not cooking their lentils. so a lot of people picked up on that and are blaming victims for not cooking their lentils. which. for a vegan food service, the customers of which know how to cook lentils, and who had mostly been using the service for a while and did fine with previous lentil products, to immediately attack victims who have been hospitalized and many who nearly died, is just awful. a lot of victims are having to clarify that they cooked their lentils
this is almost definitely not from uncooked lentils and the fact that daily harvest later insisted not to eat the lentils no matter what is pretty damning, which is why they refused to announce that at first. there are many harmful substances that survive being cooked thoroughly, and this seems to be one such situation. in fact this might not even be a lentil problem. I have seen speculation that it may have been a type of flour that was used, too. victims in the reddit threads are in contact with the FDA, one such person said the person they spoke to believed that there is a significant chance of cross contamination, but since the tests results are not out yet, there has been no official announcement. and the FDA employee allegedly said for anyone affected by daily harvest to contact the FDA because,
the conversation about getting sick is not just about the lentil + leek crumble anymore. people in these original threads, in these communities that are not allowing new members anymore, are saying they are getting sick from other daily harvest foods, flatbreads especially, with very similar symptoms: hospitalization, severe liver damage, gallbladder removal. one person delivered a stillborn two weeks after eating the flatbread and having major liver damage…
meanwhile news outlets are describing this situation as “gastrointestinal distress”, which sounds like mild to moderate diarrhea, which this very much is NOT. more news outlets are now talking about the severe liver damage and gallbladder injuries, but the delay may have put people at risk. there are a ton of articles now just search “daily harvest liver damage” or “daily harvest surgery” or “daily harvest gallbladder” on whatever search engine you use, or check an update I made on the original post.
a major problem has become that, since testing has not completed on these foods, most of the sources on what may or may not be contaminated and what effects daily harvest has had on people’s health, are the social media of daily harvest’s victims. the social media of people who are VERY injured, and their loved ones. and they are being bombarded by news outlets and people who just want to know more out of curiosity. STOP!!!!
some victims are trying to arrange support groups and groups for lawsuits but are having trouble vetting out actual victims due to the sheer number of people who are trying to get in for funsies or blame them for getting sick
I am not sure what to do here. as someone who wound up having a very wide reaching post on the subject, I hesitate to link people’s individual social medias, because they are inevitably getting harassed. what I will say is that this may not just be the lentils, and there are a LOT of people talking about getting sick from other foods like the flatbread. and old posts about daily harvest’s history of spotty quality control are starting to pop up, including one person say they found a metal ball in their food a year ago
daily harvest is handling the situation extremely poorly, recently announcing that no other food could possibly be contaminated, even though the results of food testing have not come back yet so there is literally no way for them to know that. at the same time, the same communities that reported problems with the lentil leek crumbles are now seeing reports of illness with other types of daily harvest’s foods. daily harvest is very clearly trying to save their own ass instead of people’s lives, and they have been doing this since the beginning where they pulled a cutesy “link in bio!” about the situation on instagram. this is potentially going to bankrupt them, so they are panicking. try not poisoning people next time maybe
it is very important to keep in mind that a lot of situations involving food poisoning and contamination can take MONTHS to figure out what the cause was, plus the amount of time it takes for official testing to get back. which means it is perfectly normal for more people to be realizing they got sick from daily harvest’s food right about now as the news spreads. especially since daily harvest’s entire fucking brand is about how clean and healthy their fucking food is
I am not sure how to balance providing sources with putting sick people at risk here. a lot of this information is on the reddit threads I already linked. many people in those threads are giving updates, but the daily harvest subreddit is restricted and preventing new potential victims from joining or making topics.
if you believe you have had adverse reactions to ANY of daily harvest’s food, regardless of what the company has said, please contact the FDA.
(via knitmeapony)
