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From: Hickey, Brandy L [mailto:brandy.hickey@...] 
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 10:10 AM
Subject: IMPORTANT - Grape Safety

IMPORTANT INFORMATION if you eat grapes and bananas -

 

I bought large purple grapes from the bins outside of Yokes Fresh Market in West Richland on Monday Dec. 1st.  I stored the grapes in the refrigerator until the kids wanted a snack yesterday after school.  I brought the grapes out and washed them thoroughly and gave each child a vine of grapes to eat.  The boys were eating them downstairs when I heard them yelling for me to come quick.  They had said that there was a spider in the grapes and it was huge.  I went down to find the largest black widow I have ever seen crawling out of the grapes that my oldest son had been eating.  

 

When I contacted Yokes Market to tell them that they have black widows in their bin outside they were not surprised and said that it is very common to have spiders of all kinds in both grapes and bananas.  Especially when they are stored outside where it is cold, the widows will crawl deep into the fruit to get warm.  When I put the grapes in the refrigerator, the spider did not die but became dormant instead and when it started to heat up (while the kids were eating the grapes) it crawled out slowly.

 

This is something I was not aware of and feel that everyone needs to be educated on this matter.  Thankfully my children did not eat the spider or worse, were bitten.

 

See attached pictures.