MELBOURNE, Fla. -- A Central Florida woman needed a root canal after she -- and others in her family -- bit into some grocery store purchased stir-fry beef that contained apparent pellets of birdshot.

Debbie Shannon said she purchased a package of stir-fry beef April 13 at the Post Commons Publix on Wickham Road to fix dinner for herself, her teenage son and his girlfriend.

She got home, cooked the beef and some broccoli, and sat down to enjoy the meal. But then she bit into something hard that ruined the evening, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported.

Shannon spit out a round metal ball that rolled on her plate.

Her son and his girlfriend also spit out metal pellets, the woman said.

She took the meat and a small palmful of pellets back to the store, talked to the manager and called the company's Lakeland headquarters. Days later, Shannon was recovering from a root canal, as a result of damage caused by the metal ball -- birdshot, a Publix spokesman said. Shannon and her son also had stomach X-rays.

The company's risk management office told her to keep her medical receipts, but she wants people to know of the possible risk of the metal in other meat in the food supply.

It may have been an isolated incident.

A state Department of Agriculture inspector went to the Post Commons Publix on Monday and found no violations during a walkthrough of the meat department's processing area. Nor did she find any birdshot in a package of stir-fry beef she inspected.

She also noted Publix was "working with the customer to resolve the issue."

Dwaine Stevens, media and community relations manager for Publix, said the company is "doing all we can to make this right with the customer."

The object appears to be birdshot, he said, because it was not attracted to a magnet.

Stevens would not say this was an isolated incident, but also couldn't recall any other time that a foreign object was found in Publix meat.

"We have our own internal stringent methods and policies to ensure superior standards," he said.

Publix will speak to its suppliers to make sure their procedures are up to standard and nothing like this happens again, he said.

State and federal health officials said such incidents are rare.

They don't quantify or catalog the number of times BBs are found in beef as such. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Service keeps a record of food complaints, spokeswoman Amada Eamich said.

Consumers can call a hot line to log complaints or ask for more information, she said.

"If we start to see a number of folks calling in finding BBs in their meat, we can launch a more in-depth investigation," Eamich said. If the problem is more widespread, the department can issue a recall, she said.

The Food Safety Inspection Service receives 800 to 1,000 food complaints a year, she said. Fewer than 100 complaints are about foreign objects.

"What we'd be looking for is a food safety concern because of a number of foreign objects popping up," Eamich said. "We have done food recalls because of foreign objects."

Dr. John Fruin, chief of food and meat inspection for the Florida Department of Agriculture said someone may have been shooting where cattle were grazing or a ball bearing from processing equipment fell into the meat at a plant, Local 6 reported.

"From time to time, cattle and deer graze in the same pasture," Fruin said. "Some hunters can't tell a deer from a Jersey cow."

Fruin grew up on a farm in Illinois, he said, and recalled hunters coming down from Chicago and shooting the family cattle.

"It can be a real nuisance," he said.

Eamich encourages people to call the hot line at 888-674-6854 when they detect a foreign object in their food or other problems.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.