Essex Street Market Soybean Sprouts Recalled Due to Listeria Contamination

Beware.

Government food recalls often seem to involve big, faceless industrial food monoliths, but here's one that feels a bit more personal: the New York State Agriculture Department has issued a recall for packaged soybean sprouts sold at Essex Farm, one of the produce vendors in the Essex Street Market.

Per the ag department release, which was posted on the Lo-Down, the sprouts are being recalled "due to the presence of Listeria monocytogenes." Listeria can cause Listeriosis, which has in turn been known to cause meningitis, blood poisoning, and stillbirths. Nasty stuff, in other words.

Essex Farm bought the soybean sprouts in bulk and repackaged them in individual, plastic-wrapped Styrofoam trays; Listeria was detected during routine sampling and analysis by Department of Agriculture inspectors.

So if you bought any soybean sprouts from Essex Farm in the recent past, don't eat the suckers. Return them and don't look back.

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