Veggie Booty recall? Say it isn't so

Veggie Booty, a kids' snack food that all but screams "healthy alternative to Doritoes" on its packaging, is now being recalled due to concerns that it may carry salmonella. The green crunchy snack is made by Robert's American Gourmet Food of Sea Cliff, New York, which also makes other purportedly healthy snack foods like Pirate's Booty and Smart Puffs.

What's a mother to do? This latest case is reminiscent (albeit a milder version) of the awful cases of organic spinach E. coli poisoning that went on last fall. Mothers around the country bought the organic greens for the kids, thinking they were serving their kids a healthy meal and it turns out the tots would have have been better off with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) nuggets.

Well, I hadn't served my kids organic spinach at that time, but I confess to having a bag of Veggie Booty on my shelves at this very moment. I sent my daughter to her first day of camp yesterday with a bunch of it, thinking I was meeting the camp's request that she bring a "healthy dry snack." Yikes!

So far, she is exhibiting no signs of salmonella poisoning. But a neighbor says her one-year-old, who ate the stuff by the bucketful, got salmonella recently. She thought a local restaurant was the culprit until she fielded a couple of calls from the health department.

All this, just when I was worrying about buying tainted food and toothpaste from China.