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Insect Eggs In Common Foods

A

Anonymous

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today i was cleaning out the kitchen cubords, right at the back i found a flip top "airtight" jar. I'm prity sure it had Cocoa powder in it (probably a couple of years old!)... in the jar laying on top of the solid powder were seven dead moth type inescts!... Cocoa is a finely ground powder...are cocoa flies eggs realy that small?.. i hear flour produces flies after some weeks too and maybe by a diferent rout bananas left untended seem to have an asociated tiny fly...
 
ah, it never hurt anyone. look at the insects jordan and kerry mcfadden eat. you big wimp.

eat up you soft shite.

;)
 
I always assume just about everything contains some of just about everything else.

Either that or you've just witnessed and recorded the Spontaneous Generation of Life.

Go That Man!

kath
 
Why, oh why did I read this just before going to bed? :eek!!!!:

I don't know about old cocoa (it doesn't tend to last long in this house!), but flour certainly contains eggs which hatch after a few months into tiny black insects (weevils?)

Jane.
 
Before I go to bed each night I make myself a glass of orange juice and place it on my bedside table. I go to sleep. and as I dream, dust settles on the surface of my orange juice. and in the dust microcosmic life is spawned. A galaxy forms and within that, tiny planets, swirling in their gasses, forming slowly over billions of their years, till eventually life evolves on these tiny planets, settlements of creatures evolving, forming cultures, civilizations, firing rockets into space and exploring their known galaxy and beyond.

at 3am I awake and I am thirsty.
 
Ohhhh boy.......

I hate to tell you this story, really I do! Last year I had a most UNpleasant experience, I discovered my cupboards infested with what I believe were saw-toothed grain beetles? Sorry, bad memory. Anyway, they came from a bag of old flour... and crawled into every crack and crevice you can imagine. Since I have cats (and it's my food storage area) I did not want to spray insecticides everywhere, so I ended up taking everything except cans and throwing it away. Then I washed the cans in hot bleach water! Anything in a bag or box that isn't very thick plastic or foil can be gotten into, so from then on I keep everything new sealed in containers.

These bugs sit at the top of the bag or in the folds, then get in when you unfold... smart! Also I painted the upper cupboard with bright white paint so I can see them if they come back, and it sealed all the cracks, too. Now for the disturbing news..

During this ordeal, I noticed that these bugs were very hard to spot in pasta. They held on and can hide very well in a box. So when buying new pasta, I tested it buy dumping into the biggest white Corningware cassarole dish I had, and picking the pasta up and dropping it knocked them off. Hence the discovery.. there are PASTA colored larva in some boxes of pasta!!! They are small eggs of some bug, and very hard to spot! They are attached to the pasta, and can look like the little broken bits in the dish. Guys I am sorry, but I think we should all at least be given the info. Needless to say, I don't buy pasta in a box anymore! Only the kind in the thick plastic bag.

Prepare for the upsurge of Corningware sales....... :eek!!!!:
 
on the other hand it /is/ extra protein.....

:D

Kath
 
Um, at a slight digression, we had a strange insect infestation a few years back that seemed to be started by a few stray bits of catfood and then was a nightmare to get rid of.

Never quite worked out if it was two different insects involved or one was a larval stage of the other (not like any larvae I ever saw). One lot just looked like slightly odd beetles, but the other looked kind of like maggots but with a segmented shell over the back with hairs on it and tiny little stumpy legs underneith that they ran on.

Revolting things - and my bloody hippy flatmate kept trying to treat the infestation with Lemon oil and nothing would happen except there'd be more of them, then one day I'd get cheesed off and go up there and hoover the little b*ggers up and put down insecticed and my flatmate wouldn't realise and would be going "I think the Lemon oil's working":rolleyes:
 
my main point is... flour and cocoa power are eccedingly fine ground..i would expect any insect (and ive heard that ground peper is up to 20% insect!..thats why they iradiate it!)... to be an ex-insect as its ground up. so where do the insect get in!
 
There are millions, nay billions, of microscopic little beasties around us all the time - including flour mills, cocoa factories and homes. Fortunately, they're harmless.

[off thread] the oddest out of place animal I found was a small frog (or possibly toad) in the bedsit I had as a poor student [/off thread]

Jane.
 
Hey....maybe that's the 10% extra free that manufacturers are always talking about.

personal, this is a shit eye of a thing to be worrying about now.

PEOPLE!!!!!! Wake up and smell the bug infested coffee, we've been eating this shit for years. what the hell is the newsflash?


Move along, nothing to see here;)
 
i wasnt horrified just curoious... cocoa powder is sifted and fine.. and these moths type things were quite big!.. probably they got in at the mill as i can imagin that cocoa moths are indiginouse to Uk... but thier size sugests they come from quite big lava...
 
Never quite worked out if it was two different insects involved or one was a larval stage of the other (not like any larvae I ever saw). One lot just looked like slightly odd beetles, but the other looked kind of like maggots but with a segmented shell over the back with hairs on it and tiny little stumpy legs underneith that they ran on.

The second type are definately silverfish (dunno their scientific name) they tend to live anywhere dark and damp, and quite happily live off anything the can get, not usually associated with getting into food packaging, more likely to eat grease off the back of your cooker, or soap, carpet, dead skin(house dust, yummy!) Not too evil, and I actually think they're one of the cuter house guests, having said this, i still close my eyes, turn my head, hold my breath and appologise as i squish 'em!:( :cross eye
 
Mr John (with sidecar); Sir!

I also believe there is a 'cocoa moth' which could be the culprit. An excited Environmental Health person friend of mine got very excited about household pests. I shall look on the web...:)
 
Mr John (with sidecar); Sir!

I believe there is a 'cocoa moth' which also could be the culprit. An Environmental Health person friend of mine I spoke to got very excited about household pests. I shall look on the web for this beast...:)
 
ah thanks bazizmaduno... looked like the last sugestion..maybe with trasparent wings?... they looked to have been decessed a long time tho.
 
to prevent this happening again, I suggest you:

1. drink more cocoa
2. get a chamaleon or frog
(3. housekeeping...?)

Baz
 
yep ..dont leave cocoa at the back of a cupbord for years... drink it and its livestock as soon as posible.
 
We used to live in a basement flat on Brighton seafront. The flat was very damp and we had infestations of crustations! They were tiny clear crab like things. They lived on the bedroom wall and in the kitchen cupboards. The flat was so damp that I threw out all non tinned food every month as to would go off (believe me flour can go mouldy). If I saw any o the little blighters on the work top I would set fire to them with the gas oven lighter.

I also used the burn the mushrooms of the wall. I kid you not, plate fungus it was!
 
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