[HN Gopher] Meal Kit company sued by customers whose gallbladder...
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Meal Kit company sued by customers whose gallbladders were removed
Author : ilamont
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-07-01 18:56 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| aaron695 wrote:
| tedunangst wrote:
| For reference, about 1 in 500 people have their gallbladder
| removed each year in the US.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| I'm surprised it isn't higher... feels like many people over
| about 70 that I know have theirs removed kinda along with
| getting knee and hip replacements, prostate surgery, etc. I
| honestly thought it was something every older person needed to
| have on their radar as a possibility.
| TheDong wrote:
| > I honestly thought it was something every older person
| needed to have on their radar as a possibility.
|
| I mean, to me 1/500 chance per year sounds like it's right
| along the lines of "every older person needed to have on
| their radar as a possibility".
|
| The average person lives to 80, so 1/500/yr means a 16%
| chance per person of having to undergo that operation.
|
| That definitely seems high enough to be "every person should
| have it on their radar as something that might happen to
| them".
| morninglight wrote:
| I eat lentils because they are cheap, easy to prepare, nutritious
| and taste great. I have eaten them for many decades with no ill
| effects. There are several packages of lentils in my pantry right
| now, and none of them indicate a requirement for cooking at a
| temperature above boiling water.
|
| This story is nuts. I don't know what crazy poo-poo Daily Harvest
| was selling, but it sure as hell wasn't lentils that caused this
| problem.
| rcurry wrote:
| There's some weird stuff out there with beans and nuts. One
| time my wife and I were moving from WI to NY and we stopped in
| a Denny's to get some food. We order a couple of breakfast
| skillets and when she takes a bite of one she instantly spits
| the food onto her plate. I was freaked out because I'd never
| seen her do something like that in public. I'm like "What's
| wrong?" and she says "This is poisoned. It's contaminated." I
| didn't believe her so I took a bite of her food and it was
| fine. Then she drinks some water and spits that up as well. I
| try it and there's nothing wrong.
|
| Long story short I freak out and call her doctor, worrying she
| might be having a stroke or some other weird issue. The doctor
| can't help, just says "Schedule an appointment." So I call my
| old man who is an immunologist and he's like "Oh wow, she can't
| eat food? Says the water tastes like metal? That's weird, let
| me think about this." Then a minute later he's like goddamned
| House MD, he says "you guys are moving right? Did you clean out
| your fridge?" I'm like "Well, yeah, of course." So he says
| "Your wife is into baking right? You've got all kinds of shit
| in your fridge. When you were cleaning it out you didn't happen
| to eat any pine nuts, did you?" I thought about it and then I
| was like "Yeah, we had a bag of frozen pine nuts and we both
| ate a handful of them." He laughs and says "She's got Pine
| Mouth, it's a weird olfactory reaction to certain types of pine
| nuts. She'll be okay in a day or so."
|
| I'd never heard of Pine Mouth before. And I guess neither had
| our doctor. Thankfully we had a drunk seventy five year old
| immunologist on tap.
| noduerme wrote:
| The strongest speculative case I've heard so far (somewhere on
| Reddit, from someone who survived this) was that it was caused by
| aflatoxin from mold growing on the dry lentils. Aflatoxins cause
| severe liver damage and are not broken down by cooking.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin
| yawnxyz wrote:
| There's an article floating around somewhere that the FDA did
| test for aflatoxins (and other toxins) and all came back
| negative
| _benedict wrote:
| This sort of reminds me of Lupin Beans that I discovered and
| started eating in large quantities before (thankfully quite
| quickly) finding out are actually very dangerous if not properly
| prepared, and that even properly prepared (as they probably were)
| they may be ill advised for regular long term consumption due to
| their effects in the nervous system. Their acute toxic effects
| sound a little different, but I wonder if some similar issue
| occurred here.
| tux2bsd wrote:
| I also don't eat lentils very often, I'm not a vegan. When I do
| cook them my self instructions are "make hot". I by canned, from
| dry is too much arsing about.
|
| Why is the top comment not two things?
|
| A) How to cook lentils from can.
|
| B) How to cook lentils from dry.
| greenyoda wrote:
| > A) How to cook lentils from can.
|
| Canned lentils are already cooked. You just need to warm them
| up.
| Barrera wrote:
| The story doesn't discuss what's causing this, but another story
| in Rolling Stone has a plausible lead:
|
| > "They [company] were kind of implicating the customer in not
| cooking them correctly, but I definitely did because I cook a lot
| of vegetarian stuff," says Aarts, who is a vegetarian and
| allergic to gluten. She says she sauteed the lentils until they
| started to crisp and even blacken a bit because she knows they
| need to be cooked thoroughly.
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/daily-...
|
| It turns out lentils contain lectins, a class of molecules with
| some alarming chemical characteristics:
|
| > Lectins are carbohydrate binding (glyco)proteins which are
| ubiquitous in nature. In plants, they are distributed in various
| families and hence ingested daily in appreciable amounts by both
| humans and animals. One of the most nutritionally important
| features of plant lectins is their ability to survive digestion
| by the gastrointestinal tract of consumers. This allows the
| lectins to bind to membrane glycosyl groups of the cells lining
| the digestive tract. As a result of this interaction a series of
| harmful local and systemic reactions are triggered placing this
| class of molecules as antinutritive and/or toxic substances.
| Locally, they can affect the turnover and loss of gut epithelial
| cells, damage the luminal membranes of the epithelium, interfere
| with nutrient digestion and absorption, stimulate shifts in the
| bacterial flora and modulate the immune state of the digestive
| tract. Systemically, they can disrupt lipid, carbohydrate and
| protein metabolism, promote enlargement and/or atrophy of key
| internal organs and tissues and alter the hormonal and
| immunological status. At high intakes, lectins can seriously
| threaten the growth and health of consuming animals. They are
| also detrimental to numerous insect pests of crop plants although
| less is presently known about their insecticidal mechanisms of
| action. This current review surveys the recent knowledge on the
| antinutritional/toxic effects of plant lectins on higher animals
| and insects.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15302522/
|
| It appears that lectins are degraded by heat, thus the importance
| of proper cooking.
| christkv wrote:
| I imagine pressure cookers are great to break down lectins.
| woofyman wrote:
| Lentils cook in 6 minutes. Chickpeas take 60 minutes.
| t_mann wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! I love making lentils - never had any
| problems, but that sounds scary. I suppose soaking them won't
| help with the denaturation?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >It appears that lectins are degraded by heat, thus the
| importance of proper cooking.
|
| I (and family members) have eaten copious amounts of sprouted
| moong and moth beans my whole life without cooking them. Just
| soak them in water for a night, then leave them alone to sprout
| for another day or two, and then eat them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigna_aconitifolia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_bean
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Sprouting also deals with the lectins[1], so I think that
| should be fine.
|
| 1: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/anti-
| nutrients/...
| bsder wrote:
| Careful. Lectins are the "Compound du jour" of the fad diet
| crowd.
|
| Lectins are in practically everything that we eat. If it were
| just lectins, it would be a _lot_ more people than this.
|
| This is likely contamination of some form.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I've heard of food poisoning before, but not too many cases
| of people losing organs over it. At any rate, lectins (and
| other antinutrients) are evolutionary defense mechanisms
| (poison) to prevent insects from devouring plants wholesale.
| When they become a large percentage of your own diet, you'll
| probably experience digestion issues and inflammation as
| well.
| chomp wrote:
| Hmm, lectins don't typically affect the liver to this degree
| though... I know they said their toxicology came back negative,
| but this sounds like toxin contamination of some sort.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I know nothing at all about the chemistry or nutritional
| aspects but I _do_ cook my own dog food and know that many
| canine nutritionists are recommending <10% of a dog's daily
| calories come from legumes because of a (still, I believe,
| poorly understood) link to heart issues:
| https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/outbreaks-and-
| advisori...
|
| My understanding was that initially most vets assumed it was
| the "grain free" thing causing a problem but then it was
| discovered that the heart issues have only been associated
| with certain grain free brands. I can't help but wonder if
| it's something to do with both the volume of lentils in the
| brand recipes and also _how_ the brands are preparing their
| lentils.
| djitz wrote:
| I'm very curious as to what you are cooking for your dogs,
| because I can't think of an ingredient that should not be
| fed raw
| Jtsummers wrote:
| At least for those who had their gallbladders removed for
| gallstones, it's more likely this meal happened to trigger a
| gallbladder attack (whether from the lentils or something
| else in it). The lentils being undercooked could have
| triggered gastrointestinal issues in the other people, and
| maybe some of the ones with gallstones whose gallstones and
| gallbladder issues were then discovered by coincidence.
| [deleted]
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| I've eaten beans all my life and had no clue.
|
| FYI, the green sprouts in raw potatoes are toxic too.
|
| According to healthline.com:
|
| "Sprouted potatoes contain higher levels of glycoalkaloids,
| which can have toxic effects in humans when consumed in excess.
| Eating sprouted potatoes during pregnancy may also increase the
| risk of birth defects."
|
| https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/sprouted-potato#dangers
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| In addition, eating a diet that primarily consists of
| chickpeas can cause a non-reversible neurological disease...
| usually not seen except during famines.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurolathyrism
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| You had me scared for a moment. As far as I can tell,
| neurolathyrism is caused by plants of genus Lathyrus, which
| is different from (though the same family as) actual
| chickpeas of genus Cicer. I sure hope real chickpeas don't
| cause neural damage.
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| Yes, many common types of beans are toxic. But, as you note,
| the thread is dealt with via boiling. We are typically so
| habitual in boiling (and often pre-soaking larger) beans that
| their toxicity - some of them rather spectacularly so - that
| most people are entirely aware of the fact.
| atwood22 wrote:
| Yea, I had no idea. The other day, I soaked dried chickpeas
| overnight to use for dinner the next evening and munched on
| the soaked beans throughout the day. TIL...
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Latino here I eat a lot of beans and lentejas, I had no idea
| they were toxic. My mom and wife boil them and serve them
| like that. I guess if you eat them raw, they are very
| dangerous?
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm from a lentil eating country and I had no idea they
| were toxic either. But we do boil the shit out of them.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| But it sounds like she did cook them enough to have destroyed
| the lectins.
|
| We used to eat raw sprouted lentils fairly regularly in the
| 70s/80s with no ill effects, so unless sprouting reduces the
| lectins, I doubt that's what the problem was. EDIT: I just
| googled for "does sprouting lentils remove lectins" and got all
| sorts of conflicting information. Some sites say yes, other say
| no.
| t_mann wrote:
| What I heard is that the sprouts can contain high
| concentrations of nasty stuff, I'd always assumed that those
| were created during the sprouting, that might be something
| different as well, should probably check. But I think the
| consensus is that if you fry sprouts just the right amount
| (to denature the toxins but not the other nutrients) they're
| a lot healthier than cooked beans, otherwise they may contain
| toxins (or not many nutrients at all). It was never a gamble
| I felt comfortable making, so I sort of abstained from them.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| >She says she sauteed the lentils until they started to crisp
| and even blacken a bit because she knows they need to be cooked
| thoroughly.
|
| Is an interesting way to describe cooking lentils, too. I can
| imagine sauteing ones that are already cooked. Or you can put
| them in a pan with water for awhile, but that's gonna be 20-40
| minutes, is pan-boiling a term? Not really sauteing.
| samatman wrote:
| I believe you're thinking of braising.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| The lentils were meant to be a meat replacement cooked the
| same way as ground beef.
| lupire wrote:
| That's still wacky because you (or the manufacturer) boil
| them first. The only reason to heat fakeburger to 165 (like
| the manufacturers all tell you do to) is to give you the
| psychological feeling of cooking meat, and to cover up
| hygiene failures of manufacturing, transportation, or
| storage.
| andybak wrote:
| > is pan-boiling a term?
|
| Confused. What else would you boil them in? (Brit here so
| maybe there's a language difference at play)
| roykanesmith37 wrote:
| In my eyes (I live in the US) "boiling" seems to only refer
| to boiling something in a pot. Like boil a pot of water
| (cause it to reach boiling point and bubble) then put in
| noodles.
| tedivm wrote:
| A Pot. Pots are tall and are used for boiling, pans are low
| and used for sauteing.
| zdragnar wrote:
| A pot is used for boiling water, or cooking stews and
| soups. They typically have two small handles on each side.
|
| A pan has short, usually curved sides, and is suitable for
| simmering small amounts of liquid, searing or frying. It
| will almost always have a single long handle.
|
| Woks are the exception- the look halfway in-between a pot
| and a pan, though the design is more geared towards the
| same uses you would use a pan for. Although there are two
| small handled varieties, the thinness of the metal makes it
| much less effective at stews and soups because it doesn't
| hold heat well.
| thehours wrote:
| Saucepans are somewhere in the middle.
|
| "Saucepans are round, vertical-walled vessels used for
| simmering or boiling. Saucepans generally have one long
| handle. Larger pans of similar shape with two ear handles
| are sometimes called "sauce-pots" or "soup pots" (3-12
| litres)." [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookware_and_bakeware
| nerdponx wrote:
| In the US, a "saucepan" is still usually considered a
| small pot. Only cooking nerds even know what a saucepan
| is.
| axblount wrote:
| US resident here. To me, a "pan" is usually a shallow
| cooking container usually for frying/sauteeing. Not
| something you would boil pasta in for instance. For
| pasta/beans/soup i eould use a "pot."
| wizofaus wrote:
| Difference between saucepan and frying pan? Former you
| would use for boiling, latter, not so much...
| travem wrote:
| It looks like most of the sibling responses view "pan" as
| mainly referring to a "frying pan", there is also a "sauce
| pan" that is likely what you are referring to.
|
| Rough disambiguation: Frying pan - shallow with single long
| handle Sauce pan - deeper with single handle Pot - deeper
| with two loop handles
| philip1209 wrote:
| [hypothesis]
|
| Pre-cooked lentils typically are canned, and the canning
| process ostensibly includes enough heat + pressure to denature
| dangerous lectins. So, consumers aren't used to thinking of
| pre-cooked lentils as dangerous.
|
| Consumer cooking equipment makes it hard to cook lentils
| without reaching a boiling temperature that denatures lectins.
| Think an instant pot, or even a stovetop cooking method. But,
| browse slow cooking subreddits and you'll see many warnings
| that beans shouldn't be cooked in a slow cooker without
| achieving a full boil for some period of time due to lectins.
|
| It seems to me like these dangerous lentils were prepared in a
| slow-cooking method that never reached a boil. And, any food
| facility that routinely works with beans or lentils should
| already know the dangers of lectins. So, it seems that the food
| production facility wasn't used to cooking with these
| ingredients.
| propter_hoc wrote:
| What the heck? This is completely bizarre. Gallstones don't
| develop overnight from eating one weird food, and I'm not aware
| of any other reason gallbladder removal surgery would be
| performed..
| superbaconman wrote:
| Had mine removed and I didn't have any stones, just lots of
| pain. Sometimes they just stop working.
| sveiss wrote:
| Medical diagnosis isn't a perfectly exact process, and is
| strongly driven by prior probabilities.
|
| If you present to the ER with pain in the upper right abdomen,
| with blood test results showing raised liver enzymes, meeting
| some or most of the "fair/fat/female/fertile/forty" risk factor
| mnemonic criteria, and have imaging that doesn't completely
| rule out gallstones, then the overwhelming probability is that
| you're suffering from gallstones, and that's the diagnosis
| you'll be given.
|
| Since the gold standard treatment for symptomatic gallstones is
| gallbladder removal, that's likely what will happen. Under
| normal circumstances, far more aggregate patient harm would be
| caused by trying to make the diagnosis more certain than is
| caused to the few patients who undergo surgery but don't
| actually have gallbladder disease.
|
| Unfortunately, these aren't normal circumstances: it appears
| that the liver damage produced by this lentil product produces
| similar pain and blood test results to gallstones, the risk
| factors for gallstones are very common in the US population,
| and it's actually quite hard to completely rule out gallstones
| by imaging. So more patients than expected are currently being
| harmed with unnecessary surgery.
|
| It's important that this be publicized, so that doctors making
| these diagnoses know that asking "did you eat anything from
| Daily Harvest" is now a diagnostically relevant question when
| considering upper abdomen pain, and the answer may change those
| prior probabilities drastically.
| bsder wrote:
| > Gallstones don't develop overnight
|
| Yeah, the fact that this even made it to the legal system says
| everything.
|
| Gallstones are normally a gooey crystal. It's cholesterol that
| has "crystallized" slowly over time. It's one of the reasons
| why they don't have very good drugs to treat gallstones--any
| drug would have to "ungrow" that crystal which would take just
| as long.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Yeah, the fact that this even made it to the legal system
| says everything.
|
| A lawsuit was filed. That's it. Just about anyone can file a
| law suit alleging just about anything. Now Daily Harvest will
| have the opportunity to get it tossed. That's how the system
| works. That's how the system is _supposed_ to work.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Cholecystectomies can also be performed in cases of
| cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder) which can of
| course be caused by gallstones but also by infections of the
| bile tract, reduced blood flow to the gallbladder and other
| nasty things like tumors. Not sure how exactly this product
| caused the inflammation though..
| _benedict wrote:
| Also anything that affects gut motility, so anything that
| messes with the nervous system in the gut.
|
| If the signalling controlling eg the sphincter is messed up,
| the bile won't escape to the intestines, and if the bile
| stops flowing you'll get liver and pancreatic inflammation.
|
| It might be that some toxin in the food could cause such an
| effect?
|
| I'm not sure how easy it would be to tell if this was the
| case in an acute setting though. It isn't exactly common, and
| is usually chronic and intermittent. Gall bladder removal
| would seem to be the wrong treatment in this case, but it
| might be hard to establish? My amateur medical knowledge is
| insufficient to know, just hypothesising other potential
| mechanisms.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I am one of the people affected by the daily harvest lentils. I
| did not need major surgery but ate them after Daily Harvest sent
| an email saying they were perfectly safe and to make sure they
| reached 165F.
|
| Daily Havrest has offered me a $10 credit towards future orders
| even though I became very ill from their negligence and have
| spent thousands of dollars with them in the past on their
| service.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Wow $10 is worse than nothing
| Bilal_io wrote:
| It's an insult. Xfinity pissed me off when I contacted them
| regarding the 3rd or 4th service interruption within a month
| where each lasted ~5 hours, and they offered me $10 credit.
| elbigbad wrote:
| $10 is terrible. Reminds me, I had a Lyft driver. Took me
| from the airport, absolutely FLEW, tailgated an ambulance
| with its lights on for 2 miles, literally nearly hit two
| pedestrians, ran through a couple red lights just late enough
| after they turned that other cars were starting to enter the
| intersection from other sides. I was scared with my very
| visibly pregnant wife in the car, but it was a 15 minute
| drive and much of it was quick highway turns so didn't feel
| comfortable telling the driver to stop.
|
| I left my first bad review on Lyft writing a detailed account
| similar to above. Lyft messaged me "are you ok we take safety
| paramount" and the resolution was a scant "we won't match you
| with this person again, $5 off your next ride."
|
| That was honestly worse than no response. I spend hundreds of
| dollars on rideshares monthly and this was a first.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Everyone involved here has a good incentive to find out _what_
| was wrong with the food.
|
| Yet nobody seems to have done so. There are 28,000 jars of it,
| and only one needs to be found to test. Is it that hard to figure
| out what in food causes a violent reaction?
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