The toxic and hallucinogenic weed that contaminated recalled bagged baby spinach products around Australia last week and made more than 120 folks sick has finally been identified.
The culprit is thornapple — a type of nightshade — also known as jimsonweed or Datura stramonium.
Riviera Farms announced on Wednesday night Victorian Health Department experts “have confirmed the spinach was contaminated with a weed called thornapple”.
“The investigations have not identified any other potential chemical, herbicide or other types of contaminant,” a spokesperson said in a statement
A Riviera Farms spokesperson said last week: “As soon as we were advised of the possible weed contamination from one of our customers, we immediately advised them to remove our impacted spinach from their shelves and contacted state health and federal food authorities,” the statement said.
“There is no suggestion, and to our knowledge no possibility, that any other products have been impacted by this weed.
“Riviera Farms has been in the business of providing fresh food since the 1880s, and we are saddened to confirm that we have likely had our first-ever significant contamination incident.”
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“As per our original advice on December 15, no other Riviera Farms produce has been impacted by this weed. As a precautionary measure, neighbouring crops of spinach are in the process of being destroyed.”
The symptoms of consuming thornapple can include delirium or confusion, hallucinations, dilated pupils, rapid heartbeat, flushed face, blurred vision, dry mouth and skin, and fever.
The “thornapple is a vigorous growing plant that can poison people and animals”.
It described the toxic weed as “a leafy annual herb up to 1.5 m tall but usually 30-60 cm tall. It grows quickly and usually flowers from summer to autumn and dies in autumn.”
The leaves are dark green on top and light green underneath, with jagged edges and smell rank when crushed in your hands.
The toxic weed’s white-purple flowers are trumpet-shaped, and the fruit of the plant looks like a spikey “egg-shaped capsule”.
The plant is native to parts of South and Central America but has spread across most of NSW and, evidently, parts of Victoria where Riviera Farms is based.
Riviera Farms said it was conducting an audit of the farm “which will inform our application to obtain recertification and recommence production”.
“By the time Riviera Farms baby spinach is re-introduced to market, it will be the safest, most audited spinach supply in Australia,” the spokesperson said.
Chief scientist at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens Dr warned people via Guardian Australia against deliberately getting a bag of ‘nach to seek out a cheap high on the garden supply.
“People might be tempted to go out picking weeds thinking that they’ll get some sort of high [but] it’s really important to remember yes, there might be a hallucinogenic side to this, but there’s a whole lot of really horrible health issues,” he said.
So do not, under any circumstances, go munching on nightshades this summer.
According to , almost 90 people in New South Wales have reported symptoms since the contamination was identified. At least 33 sought medical attention.
Per , it’s believed that at least 11 Victorians headed to hospital after eating the contaminated spinach.
confirmed 26 people have reported symptoms. A child in the state was admitted to hospital on Saturday night, but has since been released.
NSW Health issued its first urging people to bin packs of Riviera Farms baby spinach bought from Costco with expiry dates of December 16 and 28.
It was initially reported that nine people from four different households had been hospitalised.
Over the weekend a number of other products from Woolies, Coles and ALDI were added to the and and the ACT put alerts out about the spinach.
If you’re in Victoria, be warned: its Fresh Salad Co Fresh and Fast Stir Fry sold in the state with a use-by date of December 24.
Woolies its Chicken Cobb Salad with a use-by date of December 20, and its Chickpea Falafel Salad with use-by dates of December 20 and December 22. The products were available in Vic, NSW, ACT and Queensland.
Coles is the most recent supermarket to issue a recall for a whopping 11 spinach-based products available across NSW, ACT, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.
of all the recalled products and their expiration dates.
In short, it’s a bad day to be a salad bag.
It is also unclear how the toxic weeds got into the spinach bags, but NSW Health said initial investigations suggest the presence of the contaminant was “accidental”.
Hey, from now on. Or just avoid the salads for a while.
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