Once she saw that, “I was like, ‘Oh my God. Jenna Dee Dargenzio, a jewelry designer and content creator, says she found out about the lentil emergency from a TikTok Silverman made recapping her medical saga and cautioning people against the crumbles. It has not responded to the Cut’s detailed request for comment.Ī full picture of the problem is still filling in, though it seems that the corporate strategy has left even the influencers, who supply much of Daily Harvest’s advertising, without answers. The company posted the contents of its recall email to Instagram and Twitter the day before. As of June 22, the FDA would not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, but by June 23, a discreet “update” on the lentil situation had been linked at the top of the Daily Harvest website. We are working with a group of experts to help us get to the bottom of this - that includes microbiologists, toxin and pathogen experts as well as allergists.” According to the company, “All pathogen and toxicology results have come back negative so far, but we’re continuing to do extensive testing.” In the meantime, Daily Harvest is encouraging customers to report adverse crumble reactions (via a Google-form questionnaire or by email) and not to eat the product. “We’re working closely with the FDA and with multiple independent labs to investigate this. “We launched an investigation to identify the root cause of the health issues being reported,” the email reads. One Cut staffer who ordered the crumbles received a first email alerting her to the possibility of “gastrointestinal issues” associated with the product on June 18, and advising her to “dispose” of whatever she might have on hand two more emails followed on June 20 and 22, the latter of which outlined a “voluntary recall.” Some of those influencers have now gone public with harrowing reviews.ĭaily Harvest’s customers complain that the company has been slow to act. Its investors include GOOP boss Gwyneth Paltrow and tennis great Serena Williams, and its marketing relies heavily on influencers, many of whom - like Silverman - received early access to the crumbles at the beginning of May. Its offerings include smoothie bases and grain bowls and mylk, delivered mostly frozen and direct to consumers. Launched in 2015, Daily Harvest is a plant-based, vegan meal-delivery service. Many cataloged a battery of tests - scans, endoscopies, ultrasounds, bloodwork - with liver-enzyme levels leaping off the charts. And it didn’t end there: Others wrote about fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and sharp stomach pain, which may all point to food poisoning, as well as full-body itching, dark urine, and eviscerating fatigue, which can be signs of liver failure. There are over 1,000 comments, some from people echoing similar experiences: The most common complaint involved extreme cramping that baffled ER doctors. Immediately, Silverman consulted Google and found a Reddit forum started by a user who said they’d eaten the Daily Harvest crumbles and ended up in the hospital. “I didn’t know why this was still happening.” But she didn’t try the lentils again after the first ER visit, so when her symptoms resurfaced she got nervous: “My mind just moved to more serious things,” she explained. “Initially, my mind did go to that, maybe it’s something in here’s not agreeing with my body,” she says. The email also went on to outline the proper temperature for cooking lentils, which is apparently 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and cautioned against eating them raw. The email said that “a small number of customers have reported gastrointestinal discomfort” after eating the French Lentil + Leek Crumbles and it was recalling the product. “The wheels in my brain definitely started to turn,” says Silverman, a creative director who had gotten the lentils - a new protein option from Daily Harvest - in a PR package, and eaten them the night before her medical ordeal began. And then, last week, over a month after the pain started, she got an email: “Important information about your French Lentil + Leek crumbles.” None of it supplied any clear answers as to what jettisoned her liver into sudden distress. “I had a CT scan, an ultrasound, a vaginal ultrasound, a ton of blood work,” she remembers. After she finished it, her pain returned - “exponentially worse,” she says - this time accompanied by a 101.8 degree fever. They couldn’t pinpoint an exact explanation for Silverman’s symptoms, but sent her home with a five-day antibiotic course, thinking it was a UTI. In early May, Abby Silverman went to the emergency room in the middle of the night with “excruciating abdominal pain.” The doctors ran tests and found that she had inexplicably elevated liver-enzyme levels and bacteria in her urine.
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