After the third recent incident of Trader Joe’s needing to recall food because it had non-food in it, it seemed clear that this issue was more common than I had previously realized. Recently, friend-of-the-site Oliver Y. passed along a link headlined “Rocks, insects, plastic and other foreign objects often end up in our food. Here’s how it happens”. It contains an amusingly awful look at some past examples of recalls (“extraneous golf ball materials”!), but under-delivers when it comes to actual explanations.

Plastic pieces from frayed conveyor belts, wood shards from produce pallets, metal shavings or wire from machinery are all common. So are rocks, sticks and bugs that can make it from the field to the factory.

I had correctly guessed that metal came from machinery, but “rocks make it from the field to the factory” is far from a complete explanation as to how cookies came to contain rocks. Rocks! Where are the sifters?!

Anyhow, I’ll leave you with this.

“The thing is, there’s never going to be a day where there’s zero risk associated with consuming a food product,” Belk said.

Every action carries some level of risk, but I still don’t want it verbalized! Keep it to yourself, Belk.