Nearly 200,000 cans of popular food item recalled over potential hazard: 'Adverse health consequences'

Nearly 200,000 cans of green beans have been recalled from Target stores in 21 states.

What's happening?

The Food and Drug Administration announced the Class II recall in March, Food & Wine reported. It affects 197,808 cans of Good & Gather cut green beans because of a "foreign object" that could be found within the beans. The foreign object was not identified.

Although labeled as Good & Gather, which is a Target house brand, the 14.5-ounce cans were produced by Del Monte Foods Inc. They were distributed to Target stores in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The cans have a Universal Product Code of 0 85239-11628 9 and a best-by date of Oct. 28, 2026.

A Class II recall "may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote," the FDA said.

Why are food recalls important?

Although the foreign object in this case was not identified, Food Safety News reported that foreign objects can include plastic, metal, or other materials introduced during production, posing choking hazards or other risks to consumers.

This year alone, many food items have been recalled because of possible plastic contamination, including ground meat in New Jersey, frozen acai bowls distributed from six states, 22,000 pounds of bratwurst across 10 states, hummus tubs across the Pacific Northwest, and more than 50,000 bottles of hot sauce across four states.

With plastic used so frequently throughout food production and storage, it's no surprise that it remains a common pollutant in our food. The more plastic used throughout that process, the more likely it is that microplastic particles contaminate our food.

These tiny fragments of plastic — no bigger than 5 millimeters across — are seemingly everywhere, including in the food we eat. And experts still don't know how harmful they may be to our long-term health.

What can I do about recalls?

If you have one of the recalled cans, you should not eat it. Return the beans to Target for a refund.

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And for long-term health, this recall could encourage us to reduce plastic use in our everyday lives. The less we use plastic food containers or water bottles, the better our chances of keeping microplastics out of our environment and bloodstreams.

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