One hundred and nineteen people got sick. Thirty-two of them ended up in the hospital. The culprit wasn’t a restaurant or a packaged salad kit — it was moringa leaf powder, the kind you stir into a smoothie or swallow as a capsule because someone told you it was a superfood.
The FDA reopened its investigation on May 27, 2026, after 22 new cases surfaced following what looked like an all-clear in March. Cases now span 36 states, plus Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the United Kingdom. And this isn’t one bad batch — it’s three separate Salmonella outbreaks in 2026, all tied to moringa products from different brands and different supply chains.
If you’ve got a tub of greens powder or a bottle of moringa capsules in your kitchen right now, you probably want to know whether yours is on the list. Here’s exactly how to find out.
What got recalled — and the three outbreaks you need to know about #
The biggest outbreak — the one with those 119 cases — involves products sold under four brand names. The FDA’s traceback investigation found a common manufacturer supplying moringa powder to at least two of them.
Recalled products in the main outbreak:
- Live it Up Super Greens (Original and Wild Berry). All expiration dates from August 2026 through January 2028. These were powders, sold direct-to-consumer and on Amazon, eBay, and Walmart.
- Why Not Natural Pure Organic Moringa Green Superfood. Lot number A25G051, expiration July 2028. Despite the “Pure Organic” label, this one tested positive for the outbreak strain.
- TNVitamins Moringa Leaf Powder Capsules. Six lot numbers in total: 2507199 (exp 09/2027), 2512-304 (exp 02/2028), 2793 (exp 02/2028), 2748 (exp 07/2027), and — added in a June 11, 2026 expansion — 2725 and 2503104 (both exp 04/2027).
- Doctor’s Pride Ultra Potent Complete Green Superfood. Lot numbers 2507199 (exp 09/2027), 2748 (exp 07/2027), and 2725 (exp 04/2027).
Total Nutrition Inc., the company behind TNVitamins and Doctor’s Pride, expanded its recall twice — once on June 2 and again on June 11 — after supply-chain tracing found that additional lots shared the same raw material as the originally recalled products. That’s worth noting because it means the recall grew as investigators connected more dots, not because new contamination happened. More lots could still be added.
But that’s just outbreak number one.
The CDC is also investigating a second, separate outbreak linked to Mogo brand Moringa Oleifera capsules, recalled on May 25, 2026. Eighteen confirmed cases across 14 states, with 7 hospitalizations out of 13 people with available information. The median age of those who got sick: 67. Unlike the Rosabella outbreak strain, this one showed no antibiotic resistance.
And then there’s a third. Rosabella brand moringa capsules — sold on Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, Shein, and Etsy — were linked to 10 illnesses across 7 states and 3 hospitalizations. The pathogen here is what makes this one different: an extensively drug-resistant strain of Salmonella Newport. That means standard antibiotics may not work against it. Trade publication NutraIngredients reported the Rosabella outbreak on May 20, 2026, citing federal investigation data.
Three separate outbreaks. Same ingredient category. Different Salmonella strains — Typhimurium, Newport, and drug-resistant Newport. Whatever is going wrong in the moringa supply chain, it isn’t isolated to one farm or one brand.
How does a “superfood” powder get contaminated with Salmonella? #
The short answer: moringa is typically consumed raw.
Unlike cooked foods, there’s no heat step that kills bacteria before the powder hits your smoothie or your capsule. Moringa leaves are harvested, dried, milled into powder, and packaged — and contamination can enter at any of those points. Animal droppings in the field. Irrigation water carrying runoff. Manual sorting and drying with inadequate sanitation. Milling equipment that wasn’t cleaned between batches. Imported botanical ingredients passing through brokers who aggregate product from multiple farms, making it hard to trace which one had the problem.
Rian Bosman, co-founder of the ingredient sourcing firm BURST, described the issue in Food Safety Magazine earlier this year: the botanical supply chain largely operates on a commodity model where ingredients from different farms get blended before export. That keeps prices down but makes traceability messy — and when contamination happens, figuring out exactly where it entered the chain is slow, expensive, and sometimes impossible.
And here’s something a lot of people don’t realize: organic certification doesn’t protect you from pathogens. The “Why Not Natural” product that tested positive carried a “Pure Organic” label. Organic standards address pesticides and synthetic fertilizers — they don’t cover microbial contamination from animal waste, dirty water, or unsanitary processing equipment. Salmonella doesn’t care whether the moringa was grown without glyphosate.
How to check your own products #
So how do you know if the bottle sitting in your cabinet is safe? This is the part that actually matters if you’ve got supplements at home. Checking whether your product is recalled takes about two minutes.
Step one: Find the lot number and expiration date on your bottle. Lot numbers are usually printed on the bottom, the side, or near the barcode. They might look like “A25G051” or “2507199” or “2725.” Expiration dates are typically formatted as MM/YYYY. If you’ve already thrown away the bottle and transferred the capsules to a different container — you’re not alone, most people do this — you might not be able to check. In that case, if the brand name matches any of the recalled products, the safest move is to treat it as potentially recalled.
Step two: Compare against the recall list. The specific brands, lot numbers, and expiration dates are listed above, drawn directly from the FDA’s outbreak investigation page and the company recall notices. If your product matches on brand AND lot number (or falls within the date range for Live it Up), stop using it.
Step three: Check the FDA recalls database directly. Go to fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts and search by product name. This database covers all FDA-regulated product recalls — food, drugs, devices, cosmetics — and is updated as new recalls are announced. Bookmark it.
Step four: Sign up for FDA recall email alerts. The FDA runs a free email subscription service at public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USFDA/subscriber/new. You pick which categories you want alerts for (dietary supplements, food, etc.) and they email you when something gets recalled. It takes 30 seconds to set up and means you don’t have to hear about recalls from a news article three months late.
One thing not to do: try to tell whether your powder is contaminated by looking at it or smelling it. Salmonella is invisible, odorless, and tasteless. If the product is on the recall list, throw it out regardless of how normal it seems.
Who should be most careful #
Most people who get Salmonella recover in four to seven days without antibiotics. But “most people” leaves out a lot of people.
Research published in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease (Lund & O’Brien, 2011) estimates that 15 to 20 percent of the population has conditions that make foodborne illness substantially more dangerous. That includes people over 65 — and it’s worth remembering that the median age in the Mogo outbreak was 67. It also includes pregnant women, infants and children under 5, and anyone who is immunocompromised: chemotherapy patients, organ transplant recipients, people with HIV/AIDS, and people on immunosuppressive medications like corticosteroids or TNF-α inhibitors.
There’s also a less obvious group: people who take proton-pump inhibitors (omeprazole, esomeprazole, and other PPIs) or regular antacids. Reduced stomach acid makes it easier for Salmonella to survive passage through the stomach and establish infection in the intestines. If you’re on a PPI and you’ve consumed a recalled product, don’t wait to see if symptoms develop — call your doctor.
What Salmonella symptoms actually look like #
Symptoms typically start 6 hours to 6 days after eating contaminated food. The main ones: diarrhea (which can be bloody), fever, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, and headache.
Most cases resolve on their own. But you should seek medical attention if you have bloody diarrhea, diarrhea lasting more than three days, a fever above 102°F, vomiting that prevents you from keeping fluids down, or signs of dehydration — dry mouth, dizziness when standing, or significantly reduced urination.
And one practical note: Salmonella sheds in stool, which means someone who’s infected can spread it to others in the household even after their own symptoms improve. Thorough handwashing and surface disinfection matter while anyone in the house is sick.
What to do if your product is recalled #
Throw it out. Seal it in a bag first so nobody else accidentally grabs it. Don’t donate it, don’t try to return it to the store — contact the company directly for a refund. For TNVitamins and Doctor’s Pride products, the refund email is [email protected], and the recall web form at tnvitamins.com/recall may still be active — check both for the fastest resolution. For Live it Up, contact Superfoods Inc. For Why Not Natural, contact the company through their website.
Then clean any surfaces the product touched — countertops, the inside of a cabinet, the smoothie blender — with hot soapy water or a sanitizing cleaner. Salmonella can survive on dry surfaces for hours and in some conditions for days, according to CDC food safety guidance on Salmonella prevention and cross-contamination.
The bigger picture, without the alarmism #
None of this means moringa is inherently dangerous. The problem isn’t the plant — it’s contamination at specific points in a supply chain that moves ingredients across borders, through brokers, and into capsules and powders without a mandatory kill step. Properly sourced and tested moringa is not a health risk.
But the regulatory framework isn’t catching these problems before they reach consumers. Supplement manufacturers operate under 21 CFR Part 111 — the FDA’s current Good Manufacturing Practices for dietary supplements — which requires finished product testing but is less stringent than pharmaceutical standards. The FDA doesn’t pre-approve supplements before they’re sold. Enforcement is reactive: recalls happen after people get sick.
The outbreak investigation is still ongoing as of mid-June 2026. The FDA hasn’t publicly named the specific farm, country of origin, or processing facility where the contamination entered the chain. More products could be added to the recall. And the CDC notes that the 119 confirmed cases almost certainly undercount the true number — their standard multiplier for Salmonella suggests unreported cases could number in the thousands, since many people recover without ever seeing a doctor or getting tested.
If you want to stay ahead of this rather than reading about it after the fact, the single most useful thing you can do is sign up for those FDA recall emails: public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USFDA/subscriber/new. It’s free, it takes 30 seconds, and it covers every category of FDA-regulated product — not just supplements.