BUSINESS INSIDER (New York, New York) 30 December 13 It's Actually Not That Rare For People To Find Dead — And Living — Frogs In Their Salads (Pamela Engel)

A photo of a dead frog in a Pret A Manger salad made the rounds on social media Monday and garnered many shocked comments, but finding amphibians in lettuce is more common than most people realize.

And sometimes the frogs are still alive and hopping.

Here's a roundup of some news stories from the past few years that mention frogs (both dead and alive) found in lettuce:

- A woman in Minneola, Fla. found a live frog crawling around in her bag of Market Fresh lettuce that she purchased from Wal-Mart. (http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/woman-says-she-found-live-frog-unopened-bag-lettuc/nSmnT/)

- A Brooklyn mom was surprisingly OK with finding a live frog in her lettuce from the Park Slope Food Co-Op. She took it to an animal facility that put it up for adoption.( http://www.nydailynews.com/news/live-frog-lettuce-stuns-mom-article-1.340896)

- A Detroit woman also set free the tiny frog she found hopping in her lettuce. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/video?id=8987979)

- This California teacher decided to keep a frog she found in her bagged lettuce from Costco as a pet. (http://www.sgvtribune.com/20111101/south-pasadena-woman-finds-live-tree-frog-in-salad-at-alhambra-costco)

- A woman in San Antonio, Texas had been eating her Fresh Express lettuce bought from a Super Target for several days before she noticed a dead frog in the bag. It was missing a leg — she thinks she might have eaten it. (http://www.news4jax.com/news/woman-finds-frog-in-bag-of-salad/-/475880/20431818/-/e8i6rjz/-/index.html)

- A writer composed a column for The New York Times about finding a frog in her lettuce. She was distraught about having to flush it down the toilet. (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/the-christmas-frog/)

- The frog-in-lettuce phenomenon has also struck across the pond — The Guardian reports that in the span of two weeks, two Londoners found frogs in their lettuce. (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/sep/19/waiter-theres-a-frog-in-my-spinach)

It's not completely clear why so many frogs are getting caught in bags of lettuce, but lack of pesticides on organic lettuce might have something to do with it.

Pesticides that quickly kill frogs are often sprayed on non-organic lettuce, but many people opt for natural greens to avoid possible harmful effects of the chemicals.

http://www.businessinsider.com/frogs-turn-up-in-salads-more-often-than-you-would-think-2013-12



WALL STREET JOURNAL (New York, New York) 30 December 13 Dead Frog Found in Pret A Manger Salad (Sarah Nassauer)

[COLOR="#006400"]Photo @ URL below: A WSJ employee found a frog in her Pret A Manger salad. (Sarah Nassauer)

While eating her lunch-time salad, a Wall Street Journal employee found an unexpected ingredient – a frog.

After opening a Pret A Manger nicoise salad at her desk, and eating about half of it, she discovered an approximately two inch long green and brown dead frog in the lettuce. She summoned nearby coworkers to confirm what she saw.

Ellen Roggemann, vice president of brand marketing for the company in the U.S., said that Pret A Manger’s goal of selling “handmade natural food,” often made from organic ingredients, could be partially to blame for the frog in the salad.

“We don’t use any pesticides with our greens and they go through multiple washing cycles,” she said. “An unfortunate piece of organic matter has made its way through,” she added.

The Wall Street Journal employee brought her salad back to where she purchased it, the Pret location on 6th Ave between 47th and 48th street across from the company’s office in New York. After handing the salad with frog to the store’s manager, the manager apologized, said the Wall Street Journal employee who declined to be named. She received a refund and a voucher for a free lunch, she said.

“We are so regretful that this has happened,” said Ms. Roggemann.

Pret issued a statement about the incident:

“At Pret A Manger, we take issues like this very seriously. Our lettuce is sourced from farms that do not use any pesticides on its produce, therefore organic matter does very rarely manage to pass through our production process. We are currently looking into this issue to make every effort that this does not happen again.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/12/30/dead-frog-found-in-pret-a-manger-salad/

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