A Man Thinks He Found An Eyeball In His Baked Beans, Sounds Like Extra Protein, If Anything
The claim seems pretty dubious, but the picture is still pretty gross.
Have you ever found extraneous materials in your packaged goods? Maybe I'm lucky, but so far, so good. No screws or plastic bits for me yet. Or body parts, for that matter. The Sun reports that a man in Devon, in the United Kingdom, found what he thinks was an eyeball in his can of baked beans from grocery store chain Tesco.
The can of beans was from brand Branston, and the Sun does in fact include a picture of the "eyeball" in question. Martin Ford, the man who bought the beans, said, "I nearly fainted, I have felt sick ever since. I'm a strong stomached sort of guy and absolutely love beans for my tea but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat them again."
I don't know. If anything, the "eyeball" in question could possibly resemble one from a cooked fish, but the idea of a fish eyeball making it into a batch of beans sounds... fishy. Bam, good joke, Dennis. That being said, Branston claims that the eyeball-ish sphere was actually caused by mold, which to be fair, is still pretty gross. But how could mold get inside a can of beans? The company presented the most logical answer.
A spokesperson said:
The photograph would appear to show mould that will have developed due to a small perforation that has allowed air to enter. Damage to a can such as this is a rare occurrence and will most likely have happened when the can was in transit or in store. We will contact the consumer to investigate further, and we sincerely apologise for any concern this has caused.
This is why it's recommended that you don't buy banged up cans of anything from the grocery store. Dents might be the source of punctures, and punctures can cause air to leak into cans, leading to mold. Which leads to news articles about eyeballs in beans. It's the (media) circle of life.
The can in question does look okay, which means this whole thing is probably a freak occurrence of some sort, but it's just a reminder to take a quick look at your food before you eat it. No word on whether or not Ford's eaten any baked beans since then.