American Notes Food

Talk about unwanted food additives! Here are just two recent examples:

-- Three weeks ago, a woman in Maine discovered a black widow crawling in her grapes. Since then, at least eight more of the poisonous arachnids have turned up in Southern California grapes shipped to New England, and both the Stop & Shop and Shop 'n Save supermarket chains have pulled the affected fruit off the shelves.

-- Last week Heinz U.S.A. announced that it has recalled 12,000 cases of its strained vegetable-and-ham baby food after the discovery of bits of rubber in several jars. The company said the recall began about three weeks ago but was not announced publicly because the little black specks were harmless. Spokesman Harry Carroll said the particles "may have come in with one of the ingredients" but did not alter the product's "food grade."

Bon appetit!