Students find unexpected objects in dining hall food
Judd Collado, a first-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student, found a wire in his pizza.
(Courtesy of Judd Collado)
By Andrea Henthorn
Jan. 30, 2015 2:40 a.m.
Two students reported finding unwanted objects in their food last week at De Neve dining hall on the Hill.
Judd Collado, a first-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student, said he found a piece of wire in his pizza at De Neve dining hall on Jan. 20 while eating dinner. In a separate incident, Emily Rubio, a first-year political science student, said she found two feathers stuck in the skin of her fried chicken at De Neve on Jan. 22. In November, several UCLA students also reported finding bugs in their meals at De Neve dining hall, Bruin Plate and the Covel Commons dining hall.
In an email statement on Thursday, UCLA spokesperson Alison Hewitt said UCLA Dining Services makes food safety a top priority, and a UCLA Office of Environment, Health and Safety investigation completed Wednesday found proper practices were in place.
“Regular inspections by the UCLA Office of Environment, Health and Safety, as well as extensive procedures to properly inspect all food are among the many resources applied to ensure proper sanitation,” she said in the email.
The statement also encouraged students to report any food safety concerns.
“Any customer who has experienced a food safety problem is asked to provide details right away,” UCLA Director of Food and Beverage Daryl Ansel said in the statement. “We can’t investigate problems we don’t hear about.”
Collado said he originally thought the sharp object in his food was the pizza’s crust, but he noticed it was a piece of diamond-shaped wire when he put his plate down at a table. He said it was embedded in the bottom of the pizza slice, and when he pulled it out it left a hole in his pizza.
Collado said he was shocked at the wire he found in his pizza. He and his friends took turns examining the object, and they thought it looked like wire from a tray used in food preparation, he said.
Collado did not report the incident because he said he was too shy about it.
When the Office of Environment, Health and Safety heard about the wire on Jan. 22, the De Neve kitchen replaced all pizza-baking screens that had signs of wear, the UCLA statement said.
Rubio said she found two feathers in her chicken at De Neve during dinner on Jan. 22. She said she had eaten one plate of fried chicken, and when she got a second plate she said she realized there were two visible feathers in the skin of the second piece of chicken.
Rubio said she decided not to report the feathers to dining management because she did not think it was necessary, and that because it was noticeable she thinks it did not pose a threat to her. She said she felt more upset about an incident that happened days later when she found a bone in her salmon while eating at Bruin Plate.
“The salmon bone was scarier because it was not noticeable,” Rubio said.
Both Collado and Rubio took pictures of their dishes with the objects in the food and said their friends, who were eating with them at the time, posted pictures of the meals to the UCLA Class of 2018 Facebook page last week.
Rubio said she was surprised about finding the feathers in her food, but she said she was not angry about what happened.
“It’s understandable, and I get that they make a lot of food every day. I wasn’t exactly happy about it, but I wasn’t too upset,” Rubio said.
The Thursday statement said De Neve staff plans to take extra precautions in screening food products from now on.
