Sometimes we are sick and we just can’t figure out where we caught it. It seems as if that is what one family experienced, but the source of their illness was right in their own pantry. Kelsey is a mother of two, and for nine weeks, her family was suffering from an illness that occurred every Monday. It didn’t happen any other day of the week and it only happened to Kelsey and her husband as well as their young son. Their baby was unaffected.

In a TikTok video, Kelsey explained what happened: “On Mondays, we would have 12 hours of fever, followed by about 12 hours of stomach cramps, or diarrhea.” They couldn’t figure out why they were sick, and that was the worst part. Cleansing their entire house and not inviting anyone over for two months was an indication that something was amiss.

“We didn’t see anyone for two months because we thought we’d get them sick,” she explained. A trip to the emergency room and a prescription from the doctor on call finally got her well on Monday morning. His eyes “lit up,” she said, and he exclaimed, “Peanut butter.” Salmonella infections have apparently caused a recall of Jiff peanut butter. She initially doubted the recall because she had already checked her peanut butter when she saw it on the news.

“What about the little peanut butter cups?” he asked her husband after she returned home. The old Jiff peanut butter cups-to-go that he found in the back of the pantry were what was making everyone sick on Sundays, and he was the one preparing the food. Her response was: “It turns out that we’ve been infected with salmonella for nine weeks.” It’s because we were only eating the snack size portion that none of us ever [figured out] why we were getting sick.