A TikToker’s unexpected discovery while eating from a brand new box of Cheez-Its has left viewers seriously freaked out.
“I was eating cheez itz and next thing you i know i bit down and my mouth was full of ink!!” Maleehah (@wafflehousecheesyeggs) captioned a short video posted to her TikTok. In the clip, she shows viewers her tongue, which turned a purple-black inky color.
What happened to this box of Cheez-Its?
What started as a single viral video that’s been viewed over 3.1 million times since it was posted Sunday has turned into a saga as Maleehah looks for answers as to what was wrong with the box of Cheez-Its she purchased from a Harris Teeter in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“It tasted like I was eating a pen,” she recalled in a second video. “So then I started going through them and there were these pieces that had, like, pen on them. It’s actually baked into the Cheez-It. And I’m trying to go through the bag and find something there, like a pen or a packet or anything. But it was actually baked into the Cheez-Its.”
The TikToker shared a number of images supporting what she was saying, including whole Cheez-Its that looked as if they have something resembling ink on or in them, and the black remnants of what she says she spit out after eating from the brand-new bag.
How do you report problems with a box of Cheez-Its?
Viewers immediately had several suggestions as to how Maleehah should handle the bizarre situation.
“Girl get a lawyer rn and dont send the food back to them if they ask,” wrote one commenter. “Keep it for ur lawyers and see what testing they can do.”
“Please also contact the customer service number on the box so they can investigate the issue at the plant. There could definitely be more batches out there like that!” another user pointed out.
“I hope you kept the box and the receipt. You need to take some legal action that could’ve gotten you really sick or worse,” said a third.
After calling poison control, Maleehah said she went back to Harris Teeter in person to talk to someone, in addition to reaching out to Cheez-Its’ parent company, Kellanova. (The Daily Dot has reached out to both companies via email.)
She shared texts with a general manager from Harris Teeter who said his wife would “bring the product to our Corporate Office Quality Assurance department” per texts. Her most recent update also noted that she’s waiting to hear back from someone at Kellanova.
@wafflehousecheesyeggs @Cheez-It can yall explain this?? i’m genuinely upset cause these are my favorite snack 😭😭 #foryou #fyp #foryoupage #northcarolina #omg #harristeeter #ew #cheeseitz #wtf #help ♬ original sound – wafflehousecheesyeggs
Viewers are disturbed and concerned
Although it’s still unclear exactly what’s going on with the batch of Cheez-Its Maleehah purchased, the imagery she shared left viewers seriously freaked out.
“Omg not me horrified because cheezits are my absolute favorite!” wrote one user.
“JUST got two boxes [of Cheez-Its] today and already ate a sht ton,” another admitted. “freaking out now cus i never felt like i had to examine my chee itz but lordddd.”
“I had something similar happen when I was little…I was eating Cheetos and bit something hard and bitter and I just kept spitting out black stuff,” a further user recalled. “To this day I don’t know what it was.”
“I find it alarming how frequently I’m seeing videos of people finding messed up stuff in their food,” another wrote. “This is like the 3rd video this week.”
Maleehah said she initially posted the video because she’d been seeing a number of TikToks about food recalls and had been “freaked out,” so she wanted to find out if anyone had had a similar experience with Cheez-Its recently.
“There’s no way I have the only…box of whatever the hell it is,” she said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Maleehah via TikTok comment.
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