You find interesting — and potentially worrisome — things when you go digging around FDA enforcement notices. For example:
RECALLS AND FIELD CORRECTIONS: FOODS — CLASS III
_______________________________
PRODUCT
Chicken-Free Nuggets, Net Wt. 12 OZ. (340g). Recall # F-521-3.
CODE
Date code 3077. The product’s date is embossed on the side panel of the retail package, and the first five numbers are 23077. A manufacturer’s date of 30772 appears on the outside case.
RECALLING FIRM/MANUFACTURER
Health Is Wealth Products, Inc., Williamstown, NJ, by telephone and fax on August 1, 2003. Firm initiated recall is complete.
REASON
Chicken-Free Nuggets are mislabeled because the product inside the package is made of chicken.
VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE
1,442 cases/12 boxes per case.
DISTRIBUTION
Nationwide.
How do you mess something up that badly? I mean, there’s only one food substance that you can’t include in something labeled “chicken-free,” and they managed to make it the primary ingredient.
Pepsi used to have a diet product called “Pepsi Free”. The Free was supposed to mean free of calories, not Pepsi, although the other usage might be arguably correct as well. Who knows what they were trying to say with “Chicken-Free”.