Whole Foods is under fire after a selling fried chicken that was raw in the middle.
Paul, from Colorado, brought home an order of fried chicken from a Whole Foods store in Denver on January 20.
Though his ‘go-to’ store didn’t normally sell fried chicken in the winter, he thought nothing of it and bought it for a pre-workout snack.
While he noticed some discoloration on the drumstick, it wasn’t until he bit into the breast that he made a nauseating discovery.
He told TODAY: ‘I looked closer and saw it was completely raw inside.’
Paul, who used a pseudonym to protect his identity, posted a since-deleted image on Reddit of the chicken, revealing a raw center.
Health authorities estimate raw and undercooked chicken sickens up to 1million Americans every year, as it can harbor dangerous bacteria like salmonella, E coli, and listeria.
While Paul never got sick thanks to his ‘iron-clad stomach,’ he ‘immediately’ reported the issue to Whole Foods and his local health department.
In a since-deleted photo, a Reddit user going by ‘Paul’ showed undercooked chicken purchased from a Whole Foods store in Denver
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Paul’s Reddit thread garnered widespread attention, with 67,000 ‘upvotes’ and more than 5,000 comments since last week.
One user commented: ‘This could get someone killed. You have to take this to management and raise a stink.’
Another said: ‘As someone who works in a kitchen, PLEASE for the love of God tell them. Much better they know before someone gets seriously sick.’
According to the Reddit thread, a representative for the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment told Paul: ‘The Whole Foods store is taking this very seriously and had implemented new procedures and temp logs before I had even shown up for the inspection, as they had also heard about it from Reddit.
‘All of the poultry product from the deli was pulled and disposed of before I had even shown up as well.’
A health official told TODAY that Whole Foods management pulled video records from the store and found an employee missed a step in the cooking process, which caused the chicken to be golden brown on the outside but undercooked in the middle.
The official said: ‘Per proper food handling regulations, the employee was supposed to finish cooking the chicken in the oven and verify an internal temperature of 165 degrees after first deep frying it from frozen.
‘From a public health perspective, cooking and verifying cooking temperature is critical, and it’s important that all food retailers follow these procedures to keep folks safe.’
Whole Foods said only one unit of the affected product was sold to a customer and the rest of the batch was taken off the shelves.
Undercooked chicken can harbor bacteria like E coli and salmonella, which lead to diarrhea, vomiting, and, in severe cases, organ failure (stock image)
Raw and undercooked chicken is one of the most common sources of food poisoning in the US, affecting 1million Americans every year, according to the CDC.
Poultry can harbor bacteria like salmonella, E coli, and Campylobacter after coming into contact with contaminated animal feces.
While these illnesses affect millions and are usually mild, causing issues like diarrhea and vomiting, children and older adults who are immunocompromised may suffer more severe complications like organ failure.
Cooking chicken to at least 165 degrees F kills that bacteria.
The Denver health department representative recommended customers who may have purchased undercooked chicken from the location in the Washington Park neighborhood to contact its customer service team at 1-844-WFM-TALK.
