Bad news for red meat lovers. You might have already heard that there was recently a recall on about 132,000 pounds of ground beef due to possible contamination of E. coli.

Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued an alert about which major retailers, as well as their nationwide, state-wide, or area-wide distribution, that likely received the recalled beef that has been linked to 17 illnesses and one death so far.

The affected stores are as follows:

• Aldi stores in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin
• FoodMaxx stores in California
• Meijer nationwide
• Pak N Save stores in California
• Safeway/Albertson’s nationwide
• Sam’s Club stores in North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia
• Target nationwide
• Vons stores in California

If you’ve recently purchased ground beef at any of these supermarkets, or are storing some in your freezer, check to see the date on it. The beef in question was produced and packaged on June 21, 2018. Here you can view the full list of products that were affected.

The recalled beef comes from Cargill Meat Solutions of Fort Morgan in Colorado. Colorado with the E. coli investigation beginning on August 16.

If you did, in fact, purchase this ground beef, be sure to return the product or the receipt to the store.

E. coli is a bacterial disease characterized by symptoms such as vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea, fever, loss of appetite, and dehydration. Symptoms last a week at most, and it can potentially be fatal. If you believe that you may have become sickened from the recalled beef, be sure to report the problem to the USDA.

Guess those burgers need to be on hold for the time being. What are your thoughts on this ground beef recall? Have you bought any ground beef from any of the possibly affected stores? Have you ever been affected by tainted food before?