Prepared meals are sold at Shaw's. Frozen waffles are sold at Hannaford. Boar's Head deli meats are sold everywhere.

Supermarket customers across Maine and beyond have been dealing with regular listeria recalls lately, making it difficult to be sure the food they buy is safe.

Here's what you need to know:

What are the latest listeria recalls in Maine?

On Saturday, Albertsons companies, including Shaw's Supermarkets in Maine, voluntarily recalled 12 prepared meals and store-made deli items that contained a recalled chicken ingredient from Fresh Creative Foods due to possible listeria contamination. On Friday, TreeHouse Foods voluntarily recalled waffle products sold under its own or private label brands at Hannaford, Target, Walmart and Dollar General.

What led to the recalls?

The Shaw's recall was initiated because routine testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service found that chicken supplied by BrucePac of Durant, Oklahoma, was contaminated with listeria. The waffle recall was initiated by TreeHouse Foods after listeria was discovered during routine testing at its production facility. At the time of the recalls, there were no confirmed illnesses reported associated with these products.

How can you tell if what you bought has been recalled?

Some retailers are posting detailed recall information on their websites, including Hannaford. Others point to manufacturer recall notices or listings with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration or the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The announcements include best-before dates and UPC codes to help identify potentially contaminated products.

What are symptoms of a listeria infection?

Listeria monocytogenes is a type of bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, pregnant women, people over 65 and others with weakened immune systems, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Listeria can cause pregnancy loss, premature birth, or a life-threatening infection in newborns. In people with compromised health, it often causes hospitalization and sometimes death because it is more likely to spread beyond the intestines to other parts of the body, causing a serious illness known as invasive listeriosis.

Symptoms usually begin within two weeks of eating food contaminated with listeria, but they may appear as early as the same day or as late as 10 weeks afterward. Healthy people may only experience short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiff neck, nausea, stomach pain and diarrhea. More serious symptoms include confusion, loss of balance and seizures.

Call your doctor if you have any of these symptoms. Common treatments include antibiotics.

What should you do if you think you have recalled products?

Throw away products or return them to the store where you purchased them. Listeria can grow on food stored in the refrigerator. Clean your refrigerator, containers, and surfaces that may have come into contact with the contaminated products. According to the CDC, listeria can be killed by heating food to an internal temperature of 165 degrees or until steaming hot.

What are grocery stores doing about it?

Federal regulators are advising retailers to throw away recalled food and any other open products that may have been stored or displayed where cross-contamination was possible. You should also thoroughly clean and disinfect all food and non-food surfaces in and around the area where potentially contaminated products were stored or displayed in accordance with Food Safety and Inspection Service best practices.

This story will be updated.

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