I bought a cloth bag of rice at a local Asian grocery, because it’s cheaper that way, and did transfer some of it into Blue Bunny ice cream containers, which seal tightly. However, tonight I poured some from the zippered bag into my rice cooker, and guess what floated to the top? Since I don’t need extra protein that badly, I washed the cooker, replaced that rice with some from a sealed container, and am cooking the “buggy” rice to use as bird food.
So, that’s my culinary adventure for the day.
The bugs may have come in with the rice, as eggs that hatched. I’ve had good luck with pheromone traps to eliminate a moth infestation.
I freeze my flour, and then store it in the refrigerator, for the same reason.
I keep spare flour in the freezer. I bought a pandemic freezer, so now i always have space in the freezer. One of the drawers is perfectly sized for sale of flour. One all purpose, one bread, one whole wheat, one cornmeal, and a box of pastry flour.
Huh, that’s a possibility I hadn’t considered with the sealed bag of egg noodles I had that got infested…
I’m feeding a box of Quaker Oatmeal to the dogs over the next few days for the same reason. They each get about a half pack. I figure just enough to add a little flavor to the regular stuff. The last few envelopes have been bug-free, but what the hell. I don’t want it anyway. Gonna scour these little bastards out!
heh the bugs im fighting are picky … if its not sweet or sugar filled they skip it …
I think that’s called having a sweet mandible.
I put about half of said buggy rice into a large pot and put it on the stove to cook. I was completely unprepared for how much that rice would expand, because I’m not accustomed to cooking it in that quantity. So, I got out a bigger pan, and mission accomplished.
I lived in Micronesia for 3 years in the 1980s, and bugs in things like rice were a routine annoyance - the climate was ideal for pests to flourish, and since we relied on monthly shipments to bring us products like rice, we typically stockpiled staples for long periods of time - a perfect setting for bugs to take hold.
It was fairly common to order food in a restaurant, which always came with a scoop of rice, and find little black bugs in the grains.
Foreigners had a standing joke about how we all adjusted to the prevalence of bugs, claiming that you could tell how long someone had been on island by the way they reacted:
New arrival - finds bugs in their scoop of rice, won’t eat it at all.
Starting to adjust after a few months - finds bugs in their scoop of rice, fastidiously picks out the bugs and eats the rice anyway.
Been around long enough to become completely acculturated - notices bugs, doesn’t care, eats rice anyway and considers the bugs a bit of extra protein.
I know it sounds gross, but I made it to stage 3.
I’m sure our ancestors dealt with #3 many, many times, in many variations.
I once heard someone on TV talk about how third-world vegans got their Vitamin B12, and had some rather unpleasant theories, but really, a lot of it comes from the insects that hitched a ride on their fruits, vegetables, and grains.