Posted on 07/24/2014 7:16:39 PM PDT by jespasinthru
Has this ever happened to you? You go to a clean, modern American supermarket and buy some boxes of pasta. You store some of them in you cupboard. And when you cook it, little black bugs are floating in the water. They look like fleas, except that they have snouts. Very gross. And by putting boxes of them in your cupboard, you have now infested your kitchen with them. I was so mad that I e-mailed the company, a popular national brand, and gave them a piece of my mind. I even e-mailed them a close-up photo of the bug in question. I received an apologetic letter from the company. They informed me that these things are called grain weevils, and they are very prevalent in the commercial farms of Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho and Iowa. The company is reluctant to overuse pesticides, and they reject GMO crops because of public outcry. So some of these bugs make it into the processing plants and past quality control, and consumers find them in their boxes of pasta. I've been married for five months, and when I discussed it with my husband he was very pragmatic about it: "Just rinse the pasta before you cook it. If any bugs get past the rinsing, just cook 'em. The heat will kill any bacteria, and bugs do have a bit of protein in them. It's a sin to throw away good food." He's into lateral thinking, which is one of the reasons why I love him. A week later I got a fat envelope in the mail. The pasta company sent me coupons for twenty free boxes of the same buggy crap. Like I'd ever put their product in my kitchen again. I went to a huge Lutheran church in my town that gives out lots of free food to the poor and homeless, and explained the situation to them. To my surprise, the pastor and his administrators were familiar with the pasta bug problem. They were happy to accept those 20 free coupons that I got in the mail. Has this ever happened to you?
“put all boxed or grain goods in the fridge”
Oh yes, I remember doing that.
There’s a crazy movie called, I think “Joe’s Apartment”. I never saw it, but I’ve heard it’s pretty amusing. About a guy and the many roaches he lives with. The bugs are animated or something.
And if you grow it yourself, you ought to get used to a stray bug here or there that hung on to some leafy vegetable despite vigorous washing.
When did we become such wusses obsesses with an antiseptic life?
How Many Insect Parts and Rodent Hairs are Allowed in Your Food?
More Than You Think ... and Maybe Than You Want to Know!
by www.SixWise.com
How about a little rat hair with your peanut butter? A fly head with your macaroni and cheese? Though it may sound disgusting, these things and other gross filth the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls “natural contaminants” are indeed allowed and present in your food.
Mouse Bread
Gross but true: A certain number of rodent hairs are allowed in the food you eat. (A whole mouse, however, is not.)
In fact, so common are these contaminants that the FDA has published a booklet detailing the so-called “Food Defect Action Levels,” which were needed, according to the FDA, “ ... because it is economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects.”
Chlorine gas. Nasty stuff!!
not recommended
A peck! That’s alot of dirt! About 10-15 pounds depending on whether it’s wet or dry dirt.
I used to buy fresh oysters by the peck in a burlap bag at Christmas time. I swear there was a pound of mud in every bag!
B^)
I found grain weevils in a couple new bags of Mothers Hubbard peanut butter cookies a few years back. I had just bought a few bags on sale at Christmas time from Petsmart and was shocked to see the bugs in them after we opened one up. I called MH and complained and they said that the weevils sometimes get in the bags in the manufacturing process. It was no big deal to them. But it can make a dog very sick.
I no longer buy cookies for our dogs- I make them homemade cookies every other week now.
“And if you grow it yourself, you ought to get used to a stray bug here or there that hung on to some leafy vegetable despite vigorous washing.”
I grew my own lettuce for the first time this year with great success UNTIL I found little green worms nibbling the leaves. I found even after washing the lettuce thoroughly I just couldn’t bring myself to eat any of it. Wound up tossing all the plants.
City slicker!
;-)
And don’t forget rat hair in chocolate — yum!
This is true. Many Americans also often complain when its hot and when its cold, and express little appreciation when its neither, while just about outlawing ruggedness in males while wanting females in combat, and proclaim people are starving while refusing to eat some cooked pasta that has some bugs in it.
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