Grandma Poisons Family With Very Old Hot Chocolate

The kitchen of an Italian grandma might be the ultimate place to go for homey comfort food, but it's a good idea to check expiration dates carefully, as one family learned this week when the matriarch accidentally poisoned everybody with glasses of hot chocolate from a box that was over 25 years old.

Most people have some questionably old spices or jars in their cabinets, but according to The Local, a grandmother in Vicenza had not purged her kitchen cabinets in decades. Among her antique cooking supplies was a package of hot chocolate that had been purchased or received at some point in the 1980s. Hot chocolate does not have a particularly short shelf life, but it is not immortal. This woman's hot chocolate had a "best-by" date of 1990, but a quarter of a centery later it was still on her shelf.

This week she uncovered it in the cabinet and made up a batch for her two grandchildren and a friend, all of whom are between the ages of 8 and 12. Everything reportedly tasted normal, but a few hours later everyone got violently ill and had to be taken to the hospital. The grandmother became sick as well.

Despite the fact that it was clearly an accident and the grandmother did not mean to send everyone to the emergency room, she has reportedly been charged with causing injury.