How to Know If Your Eggs Are Part of the Product Recall

The product recall of 380 million eggs from Wright County Egg from Galt, Iowa is one of the largest and most frightening outbreaks of Salmonella in the history of the United States. Eggs are found in millions of products, and the Salmonella bacterium is quite difficult to completely eradicate. While there is no way to be sure if the tainted eggs were processed into food products that make their way into the shelves and pantries of the average American, there are ways to determine if that carton of eggs in your refrigerator is among the recalled group.

This step by step guide to determining if your eggs are recalled can help protect your safety and that of your family:

Step 1: Are you in an at-risk state? The eggs in question were sold in a large number of states, so if you live in California, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, Oklahoma or Iowa, you could be at risk. Adding to the danger, after the eggs were shipped to these states they were distributed elsewhere, so almost anyone in the US could be exposed to these eggs.

Step 2: Look for the brand. If you live in the affected states, or really anywhere in America, you need to check and see the brand label on the carton. If the carton is from the brands:

Lucerne Albertson's Mountain Dairy Ralph's Boomsma's Sunshine Hillandale Trafficanda Farm Fresh Shoreland Lund Dutch Farms Kemps

You could be at risk.

Step 3: Find the identification numbers. If the eggs in your refrigerator match the above brands, you need to then determine if they are among the contaminated batches. In cases of situations just like this one, the government mandates that each carton contain a date and a batch number, so consumers can easily identify problem products. In order to do so, look at the end of the carton.

Step 4: Look for the plant number . There should be a group of numbers and letters, and if the sequence contains something that looks like "P-1946 223" then you have a potentially tainted batch. The first number is the number of the plant that packaged it, and any "P" numbers that have 1026, 1413 or 1946 are possibly contaminated.

Step five: Look for the date. If number after the plant number is between 136 to 225, they very may well be part of the recall.

Step six: What you should do. If you have these eggs and haven't consumed any of them, you should dispose of them immediately. If someone has consumed them, save everything from the packaging that you can and keep them as safe as possible. Even if no one has become ill, Salmonella poisoning can take 12-72 hours for symptoms to set in, and you may need evidence later on to establish that any sickness anyone develops occurred from consuming this product.

Hopefully these simple steps will keep you and your loved ones safe, but if not, you need to know that you can take legal action against those responsible for your situation.