Chocolate Milk Recalled Because It May Contain Sanitizer

Remember back in March of 2020 when you seemingly couldn't find hand sanitizer anywhere? Things got so desperate that some distilleries were switching gears from producing booze to making hand sanitizer in order to help pick up the slack. Now that those shortages are mostly a thing of the past, it seems that at least one dairy company has the opposite problem: sanitizer ending up where it doesn't belong.

Recently, Hiland Dairy recalled a limited batch of its half-pint 1% low fat chocolate milk cartons. Why? Apparently because some of the products with plant code date #4025 and affected code date 1/27/21 were improperly filled and "may contain food-grade sanitizers," an FDA posting notes.

According to reporting from Oklahoma City ABC affiliate KOCO News, authorities at an area hospital discovered the contamination after 50 young patients came in contact with the chocolate milk in question, leading to various degrees of illness. 28 were transferred to a local children's hospital for further monitoring and evaluation by a pediatric gastroenterologist.

The unnecessarily-sanitized chocolate milk ended up being sold to wholesale customers in the Oklahoma City area and western Oklahoma, as well as Dallas, San Antonio, and Tyler, Texas. There were 4,800 cases each containing 50 units of the half-pint chocolate milk in question, making for a total of 240,000 recalled "units" of chocolate milk.

With recent times proving that not even ice cream is safe from recalls, it goes to show that you can't be too careful. For now, just keep the sanitizer on your hands and out of your chocolate milk.