CHICAGO () — At a Taco Bell in Chicago’s Loop on Friday, some diners said they were thinking twice about what to order after warnings connected shredded iceberg lettuce at certain Taco Bell restaurants to a cyclosporiasis outbreak.
The FDA has pointed to a single farm in Mexico as a possible source of the contaminated lettuce. The farm supplies lettuce to Taylor Farms, a distributor that provides products to Taco Bell and other businesses.
Chicago customer Colten Sheehan said the warning changed his order when he stopped in Friday, leading him to skip anything with lettuce.
“I didn’t get any lettuce. You know, I was worried about it. I just got like some fries, some burritos,” Sheehan said.
Another customer, Raniya Evans, said she chose not to place an order at all after coming across the story on social media.
“Before I ordered, I was on the Taco Bell app, and then I got a notification from Tik Tok, so I just opened Tik Tok,” Evans said. “So I was like I’m not even going to take the chance.”
Taco Bell locations in Illinois are not included in the consumer warnings issued for five states where health officials have advised people not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce from Taco Bell. Those states are Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.
The Food and Drug Administration has identified the lettuce as one possible source of a cyclosporiasis outbreak that has sickened thousands of people.
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Alonso Zaragoza, who lives in the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood, said he has been sick for nearly a week and does not know where he contracted the parasite.
“I had all of the symptoms: sweats, chills, the diarrhea, a little bit of vomiting,” Zaragoza said.
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Zaragoza said he does not believe he can determine where he became infected.
“I didn’t go to Michigan and eat in a Taco Bell over there, right, and even if I did, it doesn’t mean that that’s where I got it from cuz I went to Michigan on Saturday, you know, to visit some friends, and we didn’t eat over there,” he said.
Taco Bell said in a statement that “The affected ingredient has been removed from our supply chain nationwide.”
Taylor Farms said it is “voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market” and added that “No other Taylor Fresh Foods products” are affected.
Despite those actions, some consumers remain skeptical.
When asked how confident he was that the company had addressed the issue, one customer responded: “Not too confident.”
