Lean Cuisine 'Tuscan' and 'Mediterranean' chicken meals recalled

If one is honest with oneself, she will recognize that the most exotic ingredients in her Italian-themed frozen foods are likely the plastic trays they're packaged in. A new recall for Lean Cuisine frozen chicken meals ("approximately" 879,565 pounds of them) offers the addition of one more exotic ingredient: "foreign matter," namely bits of hard plastic of unknown origin that caused at least one injury.

The company which packaged the products, Nestle Prepared Foods Company of Springville, Utah, is voluntarily recalling the products after several consumer complaints and the lone injury. The three meals that are part of the recall are the 10.5-ounce "chicken mediterranean" pictured here; 9.5-ounce "pesto chicken with bow-tie pasta" and 12.5-ounce "chicken tuscan." Further information about specific bar codes and sell-by dates can be found at the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.

While this is in no way a serious health risk, the enormous size of the recall and the timing -- coming in an environment in which budget-conscious consumers are beginning to question the true "convenience," nutritional value and safety of packaged food -- will be somewhat harmful for the convenience food industry as a whole. As someone who is taking a more cautious eye toward the food she is feeding her family, I have been asking questions such as, "if pieces of hard plastic weren't even recognized until consumers complained, what invisible ingredients have been slipping through without reparation or admittance?" In food, that what you can't see; and don't recognize for many years; is the most harmful of all.