Woman Says She Found Piece Of Hard Plastic In Walmart Brand Ravioli, Warns It Could Have Been Dangerous To Her
CHICAGO (CBS) -- You've heard the phrase, "She bit off more than she could chew" – but that's just a figure of speech, right?
Not in this story.
A Chicago grandma said she sunk her teeth into plastic while eating dinner. The product was frozen ravioli from Walmart that is so popular, the CBS 2 Morning Insiders found it sold at several stores.
So what happens next?
The pandemic has many of us in stuck in a loop – rinse and repeat, day after day after day.
But as CBS 2's Lauren Victory reported, Irene Kazmierczak was instead thrown a loop.
"I was really grossed out and upset," she said.
Kazmierczak had gone through the motions of making dinner.
"I have a scooper with holes in it," she said. "I got all my ravioli out."
But then, her ravioli routine took a hard turn.
"As soon as I took a bite, I felt something and I thought maybe I lost a filling," Kazmierczak said.
Lose a filing she did not. There was a piece of plastic in her Walmart brand pasta.
"Like an inch long, an inch wide I would say," Kazmierczak said.
She is positive it didn't come from her pot.
"I looked everywhere in the house to see if something was chipped - nothing," Kazmierczak said.
Kazmierczak showed Victory the plastic piece.
"It has kind of a little lip to it, and it's pretty gross looking because it has dirt on it," she said.
But that grime isn't her biggest gripe.
Kazmierczak is worried because two years ago, she had major weight loss surgery. Now, 150 pounds later, her body can't handle what it used to.
"You cannot digest this when you have a stomach that's the size of a golf ball," she said.
She reported the issue to Walmart. The company wants the piece shipped to them for an investigation.
And in return?
"She offered me a $5 gift card for what the ravioli was worth," Kazmierczak said.
She said that is not acceptable in her mind.
"No," Kazmierczak said, "because what if this does damage to somebody else?"
Somebody else, she said, might have gulped that piece of plastic down instead of eating slowly.
The grandma feels lucky that her health issues taught her to chew several times before swallowing.
"I hope that Walmart can pull all the packages off the shelf," Kazmierczak said.
It wouldn't be a first for the mega-company. Walmart's product recalls page led us to an August public health alert for hard plastic found in taquitos.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture called it a choking hazard.
"I thought it would be safer to cook at home with the pandemic," Kazmierczak said.
She will now keep an even closer eye on her food – with one dinner definitely out of the rotation.
"I'm no longer going to eat ravioli," Kazmierczak said.
Walmart said the ravioli supplier is investigating the plastic that Kazmierczak mailed to them and is working on a resolution. As of now, Walmart believes this is an isolated incident.