Reason why bomb squad were called in over Ellen Pompeo's sunflower seeds plane snack
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
Grey's Anatomy star, Ellen Pompeo, was detained by a bomb squad and almost missed her flight, after her healthy airplane snack got alerted to be chemically dangerous.
Mentally preparing yourself to walk through airport security can be a challenging enough task, without having to worry about if the food you're bringing through is a hazard or not.
Most anxious individuals are all too familiar with having to convince themselves that no one has planted drugs on them, and that they don't accidentally have a deadly weapon in their hand luggage.
But if we need to start becoming concerned about the packaging of our innocent airplane snacks - we might as well just stay where we are.
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Grey's Anatomy star, Ellen Pompeo, was left gobsmacked after being detained by TSAs bomb squad at the airport, for an issue with her sunflower seeds.
In her recent interview with Travel + Leisure, the 55-year-old said: "I had a bag of sunflower seeds, like organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they were probably the most expensive sunflower seeds money can buy.
"They literally held me for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in."
The star added: "I was like, what is happening? Is this a joke?"
After giving her the shock of her life, Pompeo noted: "They said it was most likely a chemical on the packaging of these super expensive, fancy, organic, clean sunflower seeds."
But according to TSA, this isn't an irregular occurence.
Good luck to any already-anxious flyers.
TSA recommends that people 'separate items from carry-on bags such as foods, powders, and any materials that can clutter bags and obstruct clear images on the X-ray machine'.
Feeling completely confused by the fiasco, she said: "It was really like no one would ever believe this!
"I was texting my publicist saying, ‘I might not get on this plane, and you're never gonna guess why’."
But it turns out that Pompeo herself is already a nervous traveller - and we're sure this incident really helped.
The mum-of-three said: "I like to hold my kids' hands when I take off, which is probably a little selfish, and they're probably feeling my anxiety, which probably isn't the best thing to do."
She added: "I get a little bit anxious when I travel for work without my kids, but when we're all together, we try to do it all and give them a good mix [of types of trips]."
But TSA noted that Pompeo isn't the only person to experience the bizarre situation, and that a similar scenario happens to many travellers.
One TSA agent recently told USA TODAY that some items frequently set off alarm bells, even though they're obviously harmless. If their chemical composition is too similar to a dangerous substance, the security officers proceed with caution and perform further tests.
FOODbible have reached out to TSA for comment.