When it comes to food recalls, typically it’s meat and produce we have to worry about. Especially in recent months, when we’ve seen recalls on everything from ground beef to romaine lettuce and frozen broccoli. However, now there’s one in a seemingly “safe” food that’s been recalled to add to the list: Boxed cereal.

There was a recent recall of Kellogg’s Honey Smacks sweetened puffed wheat cereal by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after a salmonella outbreak caused 73 people across 31 states to get super sick, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Out of those people, 24 have been hospitalized, yet thankfully, nobody has died from the outbreak as of yet.

Kellogg’s had verified that the affected cereals were any of the 15.3-ounce and 23-ounce packages with a “best if used by” date from June 14, 2018 through June 14, 2019, and consumers were advised by the CDC to toss any cereal that met those size and date requirements immediately.

However, in an effort to stay safe, the FDA warned to get rid of any Honey Smacks cereal you might have in your home, despite whether or not it met the size or “best if used by” date of the recalled boxes.

“The FDA is advising consumers to not eat and to discard any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal. This is regardless of size or ‘best if used by’ dates,” they said in a statement.

And now, the CDC is following suit, warning that no matter what the size or date the box indicates, that consumers are warned to toss it into the trash or return it (so that you could get your money back) as soon as possible.

“Do not eat Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal in any size package. Check your home for it and throw it away, or return it to the place of purchase for a refund,” writes the CDC in an update of the official recall notice. “Retailers should not sell or serve recalled Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal.”

So if you have any boxes of this type of cereal in your pantry, it’s time to get rid of them ASAP! Yes, even if your children make a stink about it. Salmonella is not something to mess around with. It’s a a serious bacterial disease that causes 1.2 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations, and 450 deaths in the country each year.

Salmonella can be contracted in a number of ways but the CDC reports that about one million of the aforementioned annual cases are linked to contaminated food sources. Symptoms of the disease include diarrhea, fever, and severe abdominal cramps that could last up to a week.

There are continuing investigations about the potentially contaminated cereal in an effort to get more information to the public. Be sure to check the FDA website for current updates.

To learn more about the recall on Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, check out the video below.

What do you think of all the recalls in the U.S. lately? Did you have to throw away any Honey Smacks cereal you had in the house?

Update from the FDA – August 31, 2018:

All Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal was recalled in June 2018. Because the CDC has continued to receive reports of illnesses linked to this cereal, we are reminding consumers not to eat Honey Smacks cereal […] Consumers should check their homes and throw away any Honey Smacks cereal.