Have you ever kept something for so long on the shelf that when you went to get it there were bugs in it? I don't mean in things that were opened, but sealed things. Like packs of crackers or chocolate bars that got worms in them? I know I was still in my teens the first time I ever saw that happen and it kind of freaked me out. Then later I learned that all packaged foods are allowed a certain amount of one nasty thing or another in them and that's one of the reasons they have "buy before" dates on them. My husband just recently picked up a pack of crackers that was full of bugs for the first time in his life and was just stunned. He couldn't believe the pack was still sealed.
Rice. Someone (my guy most likely) decided to open a box of minute rice, not tell anyone, & (for some reason) hide it in the back of the pantry. I find it cleaning the pantry out later to be infested with I don't care it's disgusting regardless. Just gross.
It's always possible no matter how careful a company is with quality control, for something to slip its way into sealed packaging, and/or something to malfunction during the manufacturing process to allow such a thing to happen. I try to be reasonable if something like this happens, I may write a complaint to the company alerting them of such, but unless it's something really serious, i just chalk it up as a loss and move on. For the longest time I had no idea those little bugs could form in bags of rice. In fact I'm certain I had eaten quite a few of them before I realized those black specks were bugs at all. When I would see the occasional black "grain" in rice as I was preparing that I just assumed it was a piece of wild or brown rice that got in the mix during manufacturing. It wasn't until I looked up close one time that I realized they were bugs.
I don't think time is an issue for finding bugs in a product bag, as long as it was sealed. It probably the issue of the producer in that case, at least in regards to snack foods or chocolate. Rice has always been an issue in my house if there's bugs. We usually buy a humongous bag of rice and sometimes it lasts a long time; even when we seal it, sometimes bugs manage to find their way into it. The really bad case was when we went on vacation for a couple months and found the pantry full of gnats when we came back. We had to throw away most of the food.
Joan and blues, I'm not talking about foods that you have opened and resealed and left on the shelves. I'm talking about products that you have bought and left on the shelves unopened (factory-sealed) which one day you go to open and you find the whole thing crawling with bugs. You wonder, hen, how in the world did this happen? But you know for a fact certain amounts of filth are allowed. Presumably because it would be impossible to get completely rid of it. And, yes. I do believe time is an issue. ohiotom, I've seen those little black specks in the rice, too and thought nothing of them. Now I know better, but I'm not so sure that's a good thing.
Yep, I've experienced that a few times. It's usually been in packs of biscuits that have just been left a long time in the cupboard. The other food it's happened with is pasta. Either way, the food goes straight into the bin once I've seen it.
I have never thus far had it happen with pastas. I'm rather surprised that you have. I figure that must take a REALLY long time. I had come to believe that pasta was so hard, dry and dust free that nothing could live in it. Hmmm...learn something new every day.
It sounds like you are talking about weevils.Log In They can do a lot of damage to crops, and they often manage to chew their way into packages of rice, wholemeal and other grains. I have encountered them from time to time, but it never stopped me from using the contaminated food. The process of cooking the food will destroy the weevils.
I find this sometimes in baking soda if I leave it for too long in the cupboard, and by the time I find them the bugs are mostly already dead so at least I don't have to worry about that too much. I also once saw a post about Reese's peanut butter cups having some maggots in it due to poor storage or something, and there's even youtube videos of it.
Yeah. I saw something like that in some Snicker's bars many years ago when my husband was a store manager for Eckerd's. Snicker's was our favorite candy bar and it just blew us away when all of those bars were recalled because of it. I was thinking they were wormy, but in all likelihood it was maggots they were infested with. I still love my Snicker's, though.
Yeah from what I understood of the explanation of the candy company after seeing that it wasn't their fault and it most likely just happened due to poor storage condition of the particular grocery store although I don't really know enough about it to know if they were just saying that to save face or if that really is the case. I'm with you though, I still probably would buy from that brand because I'm thinking it's more probable that the chances of me getting one of those tainted products are slim.
It's not unheard of for that to happen, but it's highly unlikely to happen even a single time to the average consumer. I've never experienced such a situation myself, though you see such things on the news from time to time. Sometimes, you can chalk it up to a package that wasn't sealed properly, and other times it's user error.
