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Foodie's gadget hack to check strawberries for needles


A woman’s clever ‘hack’ to check her strawberries for needles has gone viral, with her social media post being viewed and shared an estimated million times.

Adelaide woman Yasmine Lintvelt took to Instagram on Thursday to show people how she was checking the safety of her fruit with an egg slicer.

“Meanwhile, in Australia…” the post begins.

“I don’t know about the rest of you vegans out there but I found a handy use for my egg slicer a few months ago (which had gone unused for a couple of years now), and I have to say it’s pretty useful right now.”

An Adelaide woman has come up with a clever new use for her egg slicer. Source: Instagram/@storyofyas
An Adelaide woman has come up with a clever new use for her egg slicer. Source: Instagram/@storyofyas

The call comes as strawberry sales plummet in the wake of the nationwide contamination crisis, which has seen needles and nails found in strawberries and other fruit.

“SUPPORT THE STRAWBERRY FARMERS, the strawberries don’t have the plague, in fact this one was damn tasty,” Ms Linvelt said.

Others are taking to social media with the #smashastrawb hashtag to encourage people to keep buying strawberries as heartbreaking footage emerged of farmers dumping truckloads of unsellable produce.

The South Australian Produce Market took to its Facebook page with the slogan: “Cut ’em up, don’t cut ’em out.”

Strawberry sales have plummeted in the wake of the nationwide contamination crisis. Source: File/AAP
Strawberry sales have plummeted in the wake of the nationwide contamination crisis. Source: File/AAP

Girl, 12, caught out in school strawberry needle prank

The contamination crisis has been worsened by copycats deliberately inserting needles into fruit.

In the most recent case, a 12-year-old girl has been caught out pulling a needle strawberry “prank” at a Blue Mountains school in NSW.

A spokesperson for NSW Police confirmed to Yahoo7 News that a 12-year-old girl had been involved in a needle incident and described it as a hoax.

It comes one day after a boy in the same state was arrested for hiding a needle in a strawberry “as a prank”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for tough penalties for anyone found to be tampering with produce, calling the perpetrators of the current scare “grubs”.

And in an extreme measure, supermarket giant Woolworths has taken the step of withdrawing sewing needles from its shelves nationally.