Relax, I'm not confessing to some perverse sexual kink. And I haven't "upped the ante," so to speak, by graduating to eating truly disgusting things. I was just being a bit click bait-y. Although, it is technically true--I have consumed innumerable pieces of rodent excreta, ground up pieces of bugs, and minute particles of cigarettes, sticks, and burlap bags.
And so has every person reading this. I'm referring to, of course, the realities of food harvesting and production. As the American Food and Drug Administration (which monitors food safety) has mentioned, it's "economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects." Therefore, like the government bureaucracy they are, the FDA has set maximum amounts for these "defects." For example, peanut butter can have up to 29 insect fragments per 100 grams. And whole ginger can have up to 3 milligrams of mammalian excreta (chiefly mouse or rat feces) per pound (2.2 kilos). Ground cinnamon can have up to 400 insect parts and 10 rodent hairs per 50 grams. Or take another defect, mold. Cranberry sauce can consist of up to 14% mold, and still be legally sold and consumed. Want more examples? Tomato juice can have up to 10 fruit fly eggs per 100 grams. Brussel sprouts can have up to 30 aphids or thrips (two tiny species of insect) per 100 grams. Staying on aphids, beer lovers should note that for every 100 grams of hops, growers are allowed 2500 of these tiny bugs! I didn't view any others, but I can only assume that other nations have similar guidelines, since I'm pretty sure that the U.S. isn't the only country with rats, mice, insects, etc.
I'm not trying to gross anyone out here. Well, okay, I am a little, but not enough to freak people out too much. Not to the point of outright panic, and a subsequent refusal to eat or something. These maximums are incredibly minimal, and not harmful. And, like the FDA claims, it's pretty much impossible to avoid all "defects." I suppose you could grow food indoors, and thoroughly wash and decontaminate every piece of fruit or vegetable or whatever, but the cost of money and time would be ridiculous, totally overkill. (Also, to be fair, some companies have their own food inspectors, that might be stricter than the federal agency, so they might have less contaminates. The point is even the strictest ones will surely have some insect parts, rodent feces, and the like.)
It also got me to thinking about something. Mainly, because of this ugly reality, there are no "true," 100% vegetarians or vegans. No matter how thorough they are, these folks are surely eating some pieces of animal flesh, in the form of insect fragments. I'm not trying to mock vegetarians/vegans here--I know they're trying their best, and are not voluntarily eating certain foods, but still, I do find it darkly amusing.
On a similar note, many years ago I was visiting a friend who lived in Manhattan. He'd discovered a Board of Health website, where you could put in names of restaurants and then view their safety violations. So after we looked up prospective restaurants we thought looked interesting, we checked them out on this website. And then we had to stop. Because we quickly learned that every establishment had some violations. I guess especially in a huge city like New York, no matter how clean you keep your kitchen, there's scores of rodents and roaches that will find a way inside. So we decided it was best not to know. We figured (hoped) that if the places were still open, they hadn't had anything too dangerous.
Oh, and to stay consistent, I should get to my ratings/reviews. Here they are--since I couldn't detect any of these "defects," I don't know what rat fur, mouse feces, or aphid chunks taste like. Part of me wonders if 100% pure, contaminate-free food would taste weird, or worse, without the filth "seasoning." I can tell what some of these things taste like, when I've had them deliberately, in substantial amounts. See my post on civet crap coffee beer (October 13, 2014), crickets (February 13, 2014), grasshoppers (May 22, 2014), ants (April 3, 2014), giant water bugs (June 29, 2014) and larva (June 11, 2012) if you're interested.
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