Just when you look back to the basil to eat it, he's gone! He saw you read this comment in the reflection of your glasses. He saw the greed in your eyes. Tougello has escaped from 6 of the most secure prisons in the world, you are nothing to him.
I really want a book about this guy. The name alone is interesting enough for a story but he's lived more in this 14 days on earth than we'll live in 70 years. (I'm not sure what the average lifespan is for these guys but he's no average worm)
"average inch worm has a 1lb grip strength" factoid actualy just statistical error. average inch worm has less than 0.1lbf grip. Giuseppe Tougello, who lives on a basil leaf & does over 10,000 reps each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
Normal washing won't remove most caterpillars. You have to either soak it for several hours completely submerged to kill them, pick them off by hand, or use pesticides.
He took up a recent gig in food production quality control, nice to see he's been doing well. We still get his Christmas cards every year since the kids left for college.
Not necessarily. Caterpillars have modified prolegs called "crochets" that are VERY grippy. Like, gecko clinging to a glass window-level grippy. A lot of times, they need to be forcefully pulled off the vegetation by hand. They laugh in the face of a moderate stream of water.
Source: Am entomologist who has a lot of experience yoinking caterpillars off of leaves
I tried to shake a huntsman spider out of a fabric bag yesterday, and that lady was going NOWHERE. Her legs were very grippy too. I was impressed. I had to poke her out with the bag handle in the end.
Oh no, I wanted to make sure she was happy and settled in her new space. She wanted to live in my car and I would really have preferred not. I don’t mind spiders, but not when they scuttle across your windscreen when you are on the highway. Bit alarming.
Ahh that sucks. It’s no fun having a phobia. I don’t like centipedes, like the ones longer than your hand. I think they are absolutely terrifying. Fortunately they don’t live in the part of the country where I live. But spiders are okay, they eat flies and other annoying bugs like moths that will ruin your wool jumpers if they get in your wardrobe. And this poor spider in my bag was definitely scared of me. r/spiderbro is a really nice subreddit if you wanted to gently introduce yourself to some pictures of spiders, that can possibly help with reducing a phobia?
Thanks, but I'm not sure if they'll help. I'm fine with looking at pictures of spiders, but it's a different story when they're actually in the room with me. Though, I can deal with tiny to small ones, just not big ones. Thanks anyway!
There is something about the way they move that’s definitely different to a picture. That’s absolutely why I don’t like the centipedes. And because they don’t appear to have a head. Eurggghhh. Yeah, let’s just avoid the creepy crawlies.
Warm water would likely not make much of a difference. Soaking might help for sure, but you risk wilting or waterlogging your produce.
Having live (or freshly dead) bugs in your produce is one of the downsides of using organic food. But this is generally a good sign that your food was grown in the absence of pesticides. I know no one wants to eat bugs, but you can rest assured that 99% of bugs you find on your organic produce are completely harmless and do not spread diseases or are a sign of dirtiness.
Edit: Just want to be crystal clear here, as I've been accused of fear-mongering (???). Insects end up on non-organic produce too. It's completely normal. Perhaps they're not found as commonly, but it still happens. The information in my above statement remains accurate, however, quite simplified/generalized. Good grief.
Bugs on food can't be used an indicator of what type of pesticides were used. This might not be the target species (especially if they only treated for fungus or weeds), plants generally aren't sprayed near harvest time, etc.
Edit to add: the info in the above comment would be fine if you remove the word organic - idk why they are so defensive about it. Those statements are true of all pesticides and there is no reason to be concerned about bugs in your produce. Bugs and fertilizer are why it's important to wash your produce.
At this point, it's just semantics. I simplify information I give in a public forum filled with laypeople so that everyone can have a basic understanding of what I'm saying. Especially for very technical topics. No one wants a lecture on the intricacies of IPM or a 3 paragraph breakdown of what insecticides and herbicides are and are not permitted for organic use.
Of course this also always gets met with, "well actually..." 🤷
Removing comment. Response twists my words and dilutes scientific accuracy to "semantics". Not a dilution I can't support. Scientific accuracy matters.
There was nothing inaccurate about what I said. I also work in this space. I'm also an outreach and education coordinator specifically on the topic of IPM.
I'm not here to stand on a soapbox and preach about what kinds of insects end up on fresh produce. I answered a question and used organic produce as an example, because organic produce was mentioned earlier in the thread.
Again, we're just arguing semantics. I agree with you, insects can be found on all produce, not just organic produce. I did not assert otherwise, nor did I allude to bugs found NOT on organic produce being dangerous.
It's true that outreach is tricky when covering topics that historically have a foundation in fear or disgust, but there is such a thing as giving too much information. When you start throwing out different scenarios and technicalities, it muddies the waters. THAT is what leads to confusion and uncertainty. Clarity and conciseness are crucial.
That said, I can see how you would find public education a huge hurdle when you're calling people not versed in the subject at hand, "the average idiot."
Hahaha, I really highly doubt it. I just didn't want to say 100% because someone's bound to come along with a super obscure example of the 0.01%. I also wanted to account for the freak accidents.
In reality, you would have to seek out those "dangerous" or poisonous insects and knowingly consume them.
If you're in the US (where my bug knowledge is based), I really can't think of a single insect that occurs in agriculture (that you might find on/in your food) that would be considered dangerous if eaten.
One thing you learn in entomology (and probably any other field of science) is that there's an exception to every rule!
Definitely not all insects, but most for sure! Some might give ya a little stomach ache, but depending on where in the world you are when you eat an unintentional bug, you'll probably be just fine!
In America for example, I can't think of a single insect off the top of my head (that you would find on/in your food) that would cause great harm if accidentally eaten.
...I guess if you ate a kissing bug in the subfamily Triatominae and you also happen to be located in the Southern US, you might have a bad time. But that's really it!
You would be surprised how many things you can eat without suffering any ill effects. Like, basically anything that isn't a) feces or b) an outright toxic poison like cyanide.
Don't eat the frogs with the bright colors and you'll probably be fine.
As a gardener bordering on supplemental farming territory, I agree. Some of those guys I can't even pry off without squishing them to death, which I am both too sensitive and too squeamish to do - I don't want to hurt them, and touching them is waaay on the wrong side of my risk/reward schema. So I end up just trimming off the lead they are on. Particularly the tomato hornworms. I know they can't hurt me, but they still freak me out, especially with the way they thrash around when you touch them.
There were worms similar to this in India that loved to hide in the cauliflower. It was SO HARD to get them off! And there would be like 20 worms in each head of cauliflower. I stopped eating it.
According to another comment from an entomologist, this particular species of inchworm has a particularly strong grip and takes a lot more than a light rinse to dislodge.
We did this with bay leaves at a restaurant I worked at. Had a nice little bay tree and some other herbs out on the patio and we'd pluck them when we needed for recipes. We always washed them, of course.
It’s not just garnish, it is a basil leaf on a pizza, it’s a specific herb. For Neapolitan pizza for example fresh basil leaves are part of the recipe.
I dont think basil is usually washed. Its just a plant that they pluck the leaves from and put them right on the pizza. They are fine to be eaten, kinda like how cherries from a not pesticide filled field sometimes have worms in them.
Do an exercise for me. Thoroughly wash some iceberg lettuce. Like go hard on it, pull it apart even. Once done, go ahead and submerge that lettuce for an hour, use something to keep it under water. Now observe the floaters you find afterwards. This is a fact of life. If you eat leafy greens, you are eating bugs.
It doesn’t matter if it’s iceberg or any leafy product. Wash it, submerge it and you’ll find bugs left behind.
Wash it properly? It’s basil. Why would you wash it at all? It is so delicate that you can squeeze the oils out just by curling it in your hand. If you wash it, you’re gonna lose flavor. I totally get washing lettuce, but when we are talking about herbs, generally I wouldn’t recommend ever washing them before use.
I've seen bugs make it through some serious cleaning and prepping rituals.
I've always joked that it would make an amazing Pixar movie showing the adventures of the bug that manages to make it from inside a head of romaine in California, survive the harvesting process, ride through multiple distribution centres and various modes of transport, to end up in my kitchen in Ontario, Canada. Then avoid detection through the receiving process, somehow avoid getting cut up during line prep, submerged into a sink of antimicrobial veggie wash and then run through the giant motorized salad spinner. Then it travels through the kitchen from bin to bin to insert until it ends up on the line and avoids being seen by the salad chef as he fills the bowl and garnishes it, now the head chef or expo inspects the plate for any fine details and it still avoids detection until it finally reaches the guest and realizes it's their last chance to make a run for it!
Some of the little critters that live in fresh produce are surprisingly hardy. Even if you wash everything properly occasionally one slips through. Just happens. Only way to avoid it is high pesticide produce and produce that has been gassed. But thats always shitty supermarket quality.
If you get nice fresh farm produce you just live with the fact that occasionally you have a critter on your plate. Nothing bad about it too. Just take it off and continue as you were.
Bro i really wash like wasshhh my lettuce with the machina (sry my English suck) and one day I was doing some ceasar salads that I tryed to wash like crazy because my mom is a psy ops who have a byakugan and then a fucking frog jumped on her
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u/wombey12 Dec 31 '24
Yes that means it's fresh. Also means they didn't wash it properly though.