For any diner, it is perhaps the worst nightmare: almost eating a dead rat hidden among your food.

       But, this is what has happened to a Spaniard who returned home to cook some frozen vegetables and potatoes.

       When the man, named only as Juan José D.M., put the ingredients into a pan he noticed a dark shape but at first thought nothing of it.

       He served up the food on his plate and started to eat.

       “I saw a bit which was darker but I thought it could have been an artichoke,” he told El Confidencial, an online news site.

       Recommended Lebanese premier expects draft deal with IMF within weeks French shellfish farmer invents ingenious method to stop oyster theft Germany ‘will miss two-year carbon targets’, admits climate minister

       “But when I ate a spoonful I noticed something strange, tough and crunchy. I spat it out. At first I didn’t know what it was. Then I saw two eyes looking at me and the whiskers. I got up and went to vomit.”

       Juan José had almost eaten the head of a rat which had been severed at the neck and frozen with the food.

       “This is the most horrible thing that has happened to me in my life.”

       He reported his unpleasant find to the consumers department of the Andalusian regional government as he lives in Rincón de la Victoria, near Malaga.

       He has also complained to Carrefour, the French supermarket chain, where the product was purchased three days before he chanced upon this unwanted ingredient.

       “But if I got the head of the rat, who got the rest of its body? I still cannot eat. I can just eat yoghurts and drinks. Apart from being unhealthy, it could be dangerous. A child could have choked.”

       Juan José came face to face with the dead rat on Monday, three days after his wife bought the frozen meal on Christmas Eve.

       He took the rat’s head back to the supermarket and complained.

       Initially, he said, employees could not believe his story, so he got out the severed head to prove it and put it on the counter.

       “They said, ‘how awful’ and called the company headquarters,” he added.

       Recommended Lebanese premier expects draft deal with IMF within weeks French shellfish farmer invents ingenious method to stop oyster theft Germany ‘will miss two-year carbon targets’, admits climate minister

       A spokesman for Carrefour said: “After receiving the complaint, we have contacted the manufacturer of the product and we are checking all the controls carried out on this product to make sure that they are all correct.

       “We will intensify the (checks) of the manufacturer and ours and will inform the client at every stage about what is being done.”