A vegan who says she was served a pork sausage roll that she thought was meat-free claims she has been “traumatized for life.”
Sharleen Ndungu, 20, said she began having heart palpitations immediately after being informed that the roll contained meat. And then, she said, she began to cry.
“I haven’t had meat in two years,” Ndungu said, according to Metro UK. “My belly started hurting and my heart started going crazy. I was panicking because that only happens when I consume meat — this doesn’t happen when I have other food. I’m traumatized for life now — I’m never going to Greggs again.”
The incident occurred after Ndungu went to get something to eat at Greggs bakery in Canterbury, Kent in England.
After she determined that there was pork in the sausage, Ndungu returned to the store, where the manager offered her a $3 refund.
Unsatisfied, Ndungu then called the bakery’s customer service hotline, which offered a $36 voucher.
That still wasn’t enough for Ndungu. She wanted an apology.
“I was asking for a public apology to make people aware that they should watch out for things like this,” she said. “People can be allergic to pork and potentially die from such a stupid mistake. It’s my choice not to consume meat because it causes cancer. That choice has been taken away from me.”
Ndungu is a YouTuber and posted three videos about her trauma to social media.
“My body is poisoned for life now, you know,” she said in one of the videos, according to KentLive.com.
“If I was allergic to pork or any of the ingredients that were inside that dirty sausage, I literally could have died,” she said. “Some people, namely meat eaters, might think I’m over exaggerating but I could have died.”
A spokesman for Greggs told Metro UK: “We have apologized to the customer for this incident. We’ve taken great care to try and prevent this from happening and are investigating to ensure this situation can be avoided in the future.”
Contrary to Ndungu’s claim, new research released this week says red and processed meat probably are not harmful to our health, despite the fact that the World Health Organization has classified meats as cancer-causing.
A 14-member international team led by Bradley Johnston, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, said people shouldn’t stop eating meat for health reasons. “Based on the research, we cannot say with any certainty that eating red or processed meat causes cancer, diabetes or heart disease,” he said.
According to the BBC, the findings, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, said that “if 1,000 people cut out three portions of red or processed meat every week for a lifetime, there would be seven fewer deaths from cancer.” If they cut out meat for 11 years, “there would be four fewer deaths from heart disease.”
Johnston defended the conclusions of his study. “This is not ‘just another study’ on red and processed meat,” he said, “but a series of five high-quality systematic reviews to inform dietary recommendations.”
“We’re not saying there is no risk, we’re saying there is only low-certainty evidence of a very small reduction of cancer and other adverse health consequences of reducing red meat consumption,” he said.