Health warning...or clever marketing?
It's a story that thankfully doesn't require mathematical dexterity, as Tiffanie Turnbull regales us over toxic spinach
being sold in Australian Costco stores. The Riviera Farms baby spinach appears to have been contaminated with a weed that induces hallucinations.
Some people pay good money for that kind of action. Where can I get some?*
Rather bafflingly, the article is illustrated with a photo of spinach. Not the actual Riviera Farms product itself, just a generic stock image of spinach leaves. It seems pretty pointless, to be honest.
Presumably it's for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know what spinach looks like? (shrug)
The dating game
Turnbull goes on to advise her readers of the expiry date of the affected product. After all, it's important that they can be assured the food in their fridge is safe to eat.
New South Wales Health has warned any packets of the brand's spinach with an expiry date of December 16 are not safe to consume and should be thrown out.
Tiffanie Turnbull, BBC News
Let's just hope that none of her readers have Riviera Farms baby spinach with expiry dates between 17th and 28th December!
NSW Health advises the impacted baby spinach was sold through Costco in 350g and 1kg container varieties and includes all products with a use-by date from 16 December 2022 up to and including 28 December 2022.
Date markings All Use By dates from 16 Dec 22 up to and including 28 Dec 22
Food Standards Australia & New Zealand
Incidentally, I've checked both of the advisories at the Wayback Machine preceding Turnbull's original posting. Only NSW Health's is logged, and it hasn't changed. Curiously, it was first crawled after her initial posting of this story, so her misinformation may have come from a direct source at the authority, although her story wasn't updated subsequently. Either that, or NSW Health's site simply isn't crawled as frequently as the BBC's.
But, honestly, if they don't even teach fact-checking in journalism school, I don't know what the point of it is. Experience in copy/pasting from social media and fiddling expenses could be gained from on-the-job training.
* Seriously though, this could be alarming for people who're unaware of the danger. But where can I get some?