Remember the Indonesian shrimp the FDA recalled because of radiation contamination?
Well, now the AP is reporting that the FDA has issued a radiation warning about spices coming from Indonesia too.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials last week blocked import of all spices from PT Natural Java Spice of Indonesia after federal inspectors detected cesium 137 in a shipment of cloves sent to California.
Cesium 137 is the same radioactive contamination officials found in the shrimp.
Contaminated scrap metal or melted metal at an industrial site near the shrimp processing plant in Indonesia may be the source of the radioactive material, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear regulators in Indonesia said they detected the radioactive isotope at the site outside Jakarta.
But the weird part is that the two processing plants are about 500 miles apart.
Which means that officials aren't sure if the contamination in the different products is connected, and they are still investigating.
Contaminated transport containers or shipping methods, such as trucks, boats or shared materials could also be a source.
The FDA assures the American public that no contaminated product entered the U.S. or has been sold to American consumers — at least not that they know of. Shrimp from Indonesia was pulled from shelves out of an abundance of caution.
We can buy shrimp from U.S. sources.
However, some spices are much harder to source as they only grow in certain regions of the world.
So far, there's no word on spice recalls yet.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
