- Dr. Rachel Buckle-Rashid found the reptile’s head in her package of green beans.
- He had contacted manufacturer Giant Food but “didn’t get a real response.”
- READ MORE: Salmonella outbreak linked to melons sickens more than 40 people
An American doctor took to Twitter to ask her medical colleagues for help after finding a severed “snake” head in her frozen beans.
Dr. Rachel Buckle-Rashid, a pediatrician in Atlanta, Georgia, posted a photo on
The beans, he explained, were purchased at the Giant Food supermarket chain, which has 166 stores throughout the country.
‘What pathogens should I be concerned about if a severed snake head is found in frozen green beans?’ she asked.
The tweet sparked a flurry of comments from the medical community, debating how risky it would be to eat the beans and whether the surprising find in their vegetables was actually a snake.
Dr. Rachel Buckle-Rashid, a pediatrician in Atlanta, Georgia, posted an X-ray photo of the severed reptile head on a casserole of frozen green beans from Giant Food.
Dr. Max Witt, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Colorado, said in X: “Cook right and you’ll be fine.” Wash your hands after handling raw snake meat (mainly to check for salmonella).’
Both reptiles and amphibians can carry germs that make people sick, the most common being bacterial infection, salmonella.
But Dr. Gail Barnes, a scientist at the Elgin Public Museum of Natural History and Anthropology in Illinois, said, “Pathogens are the least of your worries when you have a severed snake head among your vegetables.”
‘Don’t try to find more body parts, throw everything away, plus any other similar products you may have.
‘If you really want a list of pathogens, here’s the summary: every one imaginable!’
According to the ActionHub publication, all North American snakes are good to eat.
But he advised caution when eating venomous snakes to avoid eating the head, where the venom is stored, as their venom can penetrate any open wound in the mouth or throat and enter the bloodstream.
Dr Buckle-Rashid said she had contacted Giant Food but had “no real response”.
Salmonella infects more than 1.3 million people each year, causing 26,500 hospitalizations and 420 deaths a year.
Symptoms of infection usually appear between 12 hours and three days after eating contaminated food and include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps.
In rare circumstances, a salmonella infection can cause the organism to enter the bloodstream and cause more serious illnesses, such as artery infections, endocarditis (inflammation of the heart valve), and arthritis.