Human and rat DNA were found among a number of other things that didn’t belong in a sampling of 258 food products, reports WFLA-TV.
Products analyzed include ground meat, frozen patties, fast-food burger products, and veggie burger products from 79 brands and 22 retailers.
Food tests conducted by Clear Labs checked for substituted ingredients, contamination, toxins, allergens, and even missing ingredients.
The results might surprise you.
Of the 258 samples, meat was found in vegetarian products, a “black bean burger” actually contained no black beans, and the lab found a case of human DNA in a frozen vegetarian burger.
As for the rat DNA, that was found in a fast food burger, a ground meat sample, and even a vegetarian burger.
Even chicken DNA was found in fresh pork and beef burger products.
As for hygienic issues, about 1.6 percent of the samples analyzed showed issues.
TODAY'S TMJ4 reached out to Clear Labs Thursday to obtain a list of the impacted brands.
The company declined to provide specific brand information and said, "We as a policy do not release names of the brands or products we samples to produce our report. Our goal with our reports is to provide the food industry with actionable intelligence they can use to identify opportunities and weak spots in their supply chain. The strength of our platform allows us to identify and flag any quality issues to retailers and manufacturers swiftly, and we do reserve the right to contact them on a case-by-case basis if our testing reveals what we deem to be a potential hazard to public health."
Click here to review the entire report.
