To wonder how she didn't notice

[Thefishewife]

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3832604/Mother-s-fear-five-month-old-girl-HOSPITALISED-food-poisoning-eating-jar-mouldy-baby-food.html

If it was a massive jar I can understand but the lid is even mouldy 😳🙁

Poor baby I think Somone must of opend the jar either before mum brought it my god that poor baby could of been even worse if mum hadn't worked out what was wrong

Very fishy story...

Poor little girl, at least check the safety button on the lid is not popped up before feeding it to a baby.
I try everything before giving it to my DD and always have, and she is blw.

I've used plenty of jars of baby food (poorly hamsters) and on occasions a jar had been left in the back of the fridge for a few days too long. It would be moldy but I always thought it disturbing that it still smelt pretty much the same. But even I (feeding/wrestling a poorly hamster) still always noticed if there was mold on it. I can't imagine how you wouldn't and the mold has only ever been where there was air/space for it to grow. She must've been really distracted (read off her head) to not notice so much mold, unless it was just a bit of white fuzz at that point and the pictures were taken a few days later.

My kid sister was raised on these jars (which probably means me and all my siblings were...). I felt crappy feeding them to a hamster, but she would refuse homemade mush. Never did figure out why.

I opened a jar of passata recently and there was mould all over, and then I realised it hadn't clicked when it opened so the seal was broken. Pretty sure that'she what must have happened here too, and the mother is mistaken about the safety button.

I can't see how you would not notice but the over thing I picked up on was this:

Michelle says: 'I cannot stress enough, the jar was in mint condition when I bought it from Tesco. It even made that popping noise.

Hang on a minute, surely the jar SHOULDN'T make a popping noise? I thought the noise was if you pressed the top and it had already been opened it makes a popping noise?

That's one of the prettiest babies I've ever seen.

Madonna

"Mistaken" . . . . . . yeeeeeeeeeees . . . . she was "mistaken"

I doubt she's even fed it to her baby - just saw a nice little earner and claimed she had. If you'd fed muck as hideous as this to an infant it would have spat it straight back out, and if you tried to shovel it back in, you couldn't help but notice the chunks of mould - the texture is totally different from first stage baby food.

Infect a jar (or realise jar disinfected - is a possibility with a single jar), rush the kid to hospital, make wild accusation, go to the solicitor. Just another day in the life of some people.

The button pops when you open the jar as the air is released so the button pops upwards and makes that popping sound

If the jar is already open there is air in the jar so if you press the top it wiggles open and closed again. Which is also a popping sound.

Pretty sure she meant the former though

Dory

You're right!

It hadn't twigged with me, because all my food is made from scratch and I never use jars (yeah, right!) I'm not very bright, but you are absolutely right - the manufacturers always warn not to use if the jar pops because that indicates that the vacuum seal has been compromised.

So she's shot herself in her while-stillettoed foot anyway.

No wonder Cow and Gate don't seem too worried.

Ifound You are right! I've just prodded every jar in the house. Open = pop. Closed (and never opened) = nothing.

Dd once ate an (in date) baby yoghurt that had mould in. She spat it out. We contacted the company to get a view on what the mould was (and so if we needed to see a doctor) and they sent us an apology note and a cuddly toy. We obviously were not suitably ambitious about the mould!

Didn't she just mean it popped when she opened the jar....

On the back of a jar states stir and empty into a bowl. I know some don't but why is there even a story if she hadn't followed what you should do.

I hate to be cynical...but, this seems dodgy to me.

Careful 2 kids I had a post deleted on another thread for saying I didn't believe the OP.........just saying!

She doesn't look too distressed in photo does she? Mum I mean

It popped well that's a foot in gob moment right there.

She'll get nowhere in her compensation claim as she's weaned early. Cute baby though.

She apparently stirred the food without really looking at it, and thus the mould got mixed in and some went down to the bottom. Initially it would have been all over the surface.

I can see that happening. Have done the same myself. You coo and smile at the baby while you get the food ready, especially if the baby is fussing and hungry. You might not really look at the food while you stir it, and the lid might be put into the sink or even on the counter without you really looking at it. You might be paying attention to the older sibling too.

She said she heard the popping sound when she opened the food. Not when she pressed the lid. I have heard that sound too when opening jars. It's not from pressing the popper on the lid - that is more of a click sound imo. Actually, if something inside is a bit off, the pop might be more pronounced thanks to byproducts of mould or bacteria.

I am sceptical
Especially as she has gathered up a lovely set of proof photos before taking her daughter back to the Dr a WEEK later, a poorly baby should be seen sooner surely? I know mine would have been at that age and I am quite slak robust about these things

Oh and she irritated me by saying she is a full time mother- I have yet to work out how you can be a part time one.

I could see her absent mindedly stirring the food and the baby eating it without complaint. My toddler still eats mud and thinks it tastes great.

But, I would also say that if she's absent minded about it, and she has another small child in the house, it's very possible that child 1 got into the jars and opened them a few days/weeks before hand. I would also question her memory of a jar lid popping like it's new if she wasn't even observant enough to notice mold growing in it.

She spaced out and went on auto pilot. It happens to the best of us. But it's probably not the food manufacturers fault, especially since there were two jars affected.

Now I don't open jars very often what with not actually knowing the precise location of my kitchen but every jar I recall opening (perhaps 5) did pop when I opened it.

Oh and I once ate dog food because I was distracted by a small child so I can see how it could happen

www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Food-Safety/Food-safety-recalls-due-to-larvae-and-mould
Cow & Gate recall of food from 2015 - muesli and chicken bites.

www.aspokesmansaid.com/eating-and-drinking/stories/content-7820/cow-and-gate-hit-by-mums--complaints-of-mould-in-baby-foods
More mould, again in the fruit pots.
'The mould contamination seems to have mainly affected Fruit Pots, but there have also been complaints about other products, in plastic pots and glass jars.
'Baby food giant Cow and Gate has been hit by a string of complaints from mums who’ve found foul-looking mould in the their infant’s food.

Dozens of complaints have been posted on the food manufacture’s Facebook page during January and especially through February and March.
Other complaints and photos have appeared on Twitter...
...One stunned mum, Kerry Blakeley, 24, described how she was on the verge of feeding her nine-month-old son, Harry, Cow and Gate’s My First Bolognese, which comes in a glass jar, when she noticed a strange white substance growing on top.
“It was lucky, as I almost put it in his mouth, but I noticed it just in time. It’s disgusting!” '

'* In November last year Cow and Gate recalled 19,000 packs of Sunny Start – My First Banana Muesli after 19 complaints that moth larvae had been found in the food.'

There are lots of photos of mould in jars.

www.bathchronicle.co.uk/mouldy-baby-food-sparks-dad-s-complaint/story-12782647-detail/story.html
Here's a dad who spotted a lump of mould too late.
'A father has complained after finding what appeared to be mould in a baby food jar as he fed his six-month- old son.
Daniel Long, who lives in Haycombe Drive, had given his son William about half of the Cow and Gate fruit cocktail when he spotted a dark lump in the mixture.
The 23-year-old landscape gardener contacted the Trowbridge-based baby food company to complain and sent the food off to it to be analysed.
He received a letter explaining that the cap to the jar must have been damaged, accompanied by a £3 voucher for a new jar of food.'

It doesn't look very good for Cow & Gate.

Thanks for the warning, Magic ( thumbs up icon that we don't have on this site )

For clarity - I don't doubt the sincerity of the OP, but I think that the story lady may be exaggerating

I see the Daily Fail still haven't grasped the basic concept that fungus and bacteria are different. Great scientific reporting...