# Fly guts in ketchup? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545 "2003-12-17T15:47:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shaggarito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@Shaggarito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shaggarito)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/1 "2003-12-17T15:47:03Z")
Is it true that fly guts are in ketchup? My aunt always tells this story. Before the tomatoes go into the ketchup makin’ machine there are flys all over them. The tomatoe’s are then just sent through the machine and the flys are crushed into ketchup along with the tomatoe’s. I heard her story for about the 50th time last night. She swears it’s true. -Shaggarito- ---
**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/2 "2003-12-17T15:54:18Z")
Are there fly guts in ketchup in ketchup? Well, yes, almost certainly. OTOH, that’s sort of like asking, “Has anyone ever inhaled a spider whilst asleep?” The answer is, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean that we all get our RDA of twelve essential vitamins and minerals by sucking up random arthropods whilst snoring”. ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/3 "2003-12-17T16:23:56Z")
I read on-line somewhere about common contaminants in foods. There are quite likey contaminants in food, but try to not obsess about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/4 "2003-12-17T16:31:29Z")
Whilst it is entirely possible that the occasional hapless invertebrate finds itself macerated and/or incorporated into processed foodstuffs, the idea that a ketchup factory would be teeming with flies is a gross exaggeration, surely - there are standards of hygiene to which food manufacturers must adhere. ---
**Author:** ![gluteus\_maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f17d59/32.png) [@gluteus\_maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gluteus_maximus)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/5 "2003-12-17T16:37:22Z")
[What is Pure?](http://www.foodproductdesign.com/archive/1992/0792qa.html) > [@](#): > > _Examples of FDA Food Defect Action Levels_ > \*\*Mushrooms, canned or dried > Insects > Average of 20 or more maggots of any size per 100 grams of drained mushrooms and proportionate liquid or 15 grams of dried mushrooms OR > Average of 5 or more maggots 2mm or longer per 100 grams of dried mushrooms and proportionate liquid or 15 grams of dried mushrooms > > Paprika, ground > Mold > Average mold count of more than 20% > > Insect filth > Average of more than 75 insect fragments per 25 grams > > Rodent filth > Average of more than 11 rodent hairs per 25 grams > > Peanut Butter > Insect filth > Average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams > > Rodent filth > Average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams > > Grit > Gritty taste and water-insoluble inorganic residue more than 25 mg per 100 grams > > Tomato puree > Drosophila fly > Average of 20 or more fly eggs per 100 grams; or 10 or more fly eggs and 1 or more maggots per 100 grams; or 2 or more maggots per 100 grams\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/6 "2003-12-17T17:14:04Z")
My brother-in-law used to work in a big ol’ place where they made (amongst other things) ketchup. He says that he spent a good deal of his day standing over a conveyer with a sort of rake-like tool, picking obvious contaminants out before the tomatos got pulverized. Rats were, according to him, pretty common, since the tomatos used were beat-up and ripe to the point of stinky. He also says that, when a rat got away and ended up mingling its essence with the pureed tomatoes, it wasn’t considered a “stop the presses” situation. All that stuff gets pasteurized, anyway. Assuming my BIL’s anecdote is true, and industry-wide, that’s still not the reason I avoid ketchup. It’s all that damned sugar – I’m sure the recipe is adjusted for a six-year-old’s palate. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/7 "2003-12-17T17:33:34Z")
I used to work as a fresh commodities inspector (primarily fresh fruit and raisins) for the USDA and I can tell you that there are established tolerances for each kind of intrusion/defect, i.e. particular lot has less than established tolerance = passed inspection vs. lot with elevated levels of defect = failed inspection. I don’t think that there are any feasible ways of producing any kind of food product with 0% tolerance. So, while I have absolutely no knowledge of whether there are truly fly guts in ketchup (and probably annoying the hell out of the posters who hate these kinds of resonses to factual questions), I would hazard a guess that not only are there fly guts but a lot of other things as well. Further, I would hazard a guess that there are any number of interesting things in just about everything that doesn’t come out of your garden. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/8 "2003-12-17T17:53:29Z")
Never mind the fly guts in the OPs tomatoes, what about those pesky [apostrophes](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=226144) contaminating them? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/9 "2003-12-17T19:15:40Z")
I used to get a bit freaked out by the little weevils in blackberries out of the garden, but my momma always told me “Don’t worry, they’ve been living on the stuff so they must be 99% blackberry anyway!” Try thinking of it like that… Anyway, a bit of fly guts won’t kill ya. People are way too squeamish these days. “You bushel it up before you die”, as they say. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/10 "2003-12-17T19:27:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by r\_k \* > **"Don’t worry, they’ve been living on the stuff so they must be 99% blackberry anyway!"** Your mother was a wise woman indeed! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gluteus\_maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f17d59/32.png) [@gluteus\_maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gluteus_maximus)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/11 "2003-12-17T19:45:29Z")
Just keep your goddamned ketchup off of my Soylent Green! Pass the mayonnaise, please! ---
**Author:** ![pestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e5b9ba/32.png) [@pestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pestie)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/12 "2003-12-17T21:11:18Z")
My answer: sometimes. Like so many other Americans, I worked at a McDonalds for a few months when I was 16. I worked with a guy who wasn’t quite right in the head. He was a lot of fun, though. One thing we had to do on occasion was fill the ketchup dispensers used to deposit a specific amount of ketchup on a hamburger bun. They were filled using big plastic bags of ketchup. Once, during this process, this guy sees a fly land on the edge of the ketchup dispenser and says something like, “whoa, get it!” and proceeds to trap/drown the fly with the stream of ketchup from the bag. The fly’s corpse was then in the dispenser, of course. Someone that day got a little extra treat in their McBurger. And yet I _still_ like fast food. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/13 "2003-12-17T21:44:50Z")
> [@](#): > > **r\_k** : “You bushel it up before you die”, as they say. Hmmm… my family (Atlantic Canadian) has always had it as “You eat a peck before you die.” Does that mean you guys eat _four times more dirt_ down there? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/14 "2003-12-17T22:08:35Z")
While I have no doubt that there is all manner of assorted “filth” (as gluteus’ post calls it) in our foodstuffs, I would propose that flies – at least living ones – are at a minimum. It’s not like they drug them on the conveyor belt, you know. Any fly worthy of the name, well, flies. Why would they cling to an about-to-crushed tomato and go down with the ship, as it were? Anyone who has tried to swat one knows I’m right. I suspect that what auntie saw was the same 20-odd flies swarming around the mouth of the crusher attracted to the aroma but ultimately unwilling to sacrifice their lives to become somebody’s special sauce. As for Larry Mudd’s BIL’s dead rat(s), well, let’s just change the subject, okay? ---
**Author:** ![MaryEFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/15 "2003-12-17T22:33:30Z")
We’re all descended from a long line of people, and before that simians, etc, who ate bits of all that stuff on **gluteus** ’s USDA list. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/16 "2003-12-17T22:55:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Does that mean you guys eat four times more dirt down there? Maybe… I’m not really up on my archaic measurements. By the way, I’m not “down there”, I’m “over here” in England. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fly-guts-in-ketchup/219545/17 "2003-12-18T13:54:53Z")
My mouth is watering. Haute cuisine.