Olive Garden Red Lobster Salad Mix [VIDEO REPORT] Did Restaurants Spread Stomach Virus Serving Contaminated Mexican Greens?

Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants were blamed for spreading a stomach virus with their salad, but now the two chains claim the salad mix was discontinued at the restaurants before people got sick with the virus.

More than 200 people were sick in Iowa and Nebraska but the salad mix had not been served at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants there for about a month, a spokesman for the restaurants said on Saturday.

146  Cases were reported in Iowa, followed by Texas with 113, Nebraska with 81 and Florida with 25.

The Food and Drug Administration identified the salad, supplied by a Mexican farm, as responsible for the cyclospora outbreak in those two states.

But the FDA said it is not yet clear if the Mexican salad mix is definitely the culprit.

Rich Jeffers, a spokesman for Orlando, Florida-based Darden Restaurants, which operates Olive Garden and Red Lobster, said it has been more than a month since the last case was reported in Iowa and Nebraska.

"We are fully confident along with health officials that in those states the product is out of the supply chain," Jeffers said.

The FDA also said its investigation has not found any problems with bagged salad mix found in grocery stores.

The stomach virus, Cyclosporiasis, is most commonly found in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Symptoms for the illness, caused by ingesting contaminated food or water containing a parasite too small to be detected without a microscope, include nausea, watery diarrhea and body aches.

Most people with healthy immune systems recover from the infection without treatment, but the elderly and those with weakened immune systems are believed to be at higher risk for prolonged illness.