There’s stuff in our food you wouldn’t believe…and it’s totally legal!
The FDA has “action levels,” or the levels of non-food materials at which they will recall or take action against a certain food product. However, according to the FDA, it is almost impossible to fully prevent these materials in the foods below at specified action levels. It still doesn’t sit easy that this stuff is in my food at all. Check out this list of foods and their actions levels below, and decide for yourself.
1. For peaches, the FDA action level is when 3% or more fruit by count are wormy or moldy. Gross!
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2. Action is taken for peanut butter only when there’s an average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams, or an average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams.
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3. The FDA will do something about macaroni and other noodle products if there’s evidence that the products are above an average of 225 insect fragments. They will also do something if there’s more per 225 grams in 6 or more subsamples, or an average of 4.5 rodent hairs or more per 225 grams in 6 or more subsamples. Yummy.
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4. Above an average of 400 or more insect fragments per 50 gram and an average of 11 or more rodent hairs per 50 grams will cause FDA intervention for ground cinnamon.
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5. The FDA will take actions for tomatoes if the average of fly eggs is 10 or more per 500 grams. Oh man, not fly eggs.
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6. The FDA will intervene with ground oregano if the average of insect fragments is at or above 1250 per 10 grams. Mmmm, makes you wanna sprinkle some oregano on that slice of pizza, doesn’t it?
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7. The FDA takes action on mushrooms if there are an average of over 20 or more maggots of any size per 15 grams of dried mushrooms. I think I’m gonna be sick.
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(via: fda.gov)
I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to be able to stop myself from thinking about this the next time I eat any of these foods (especially pizza). But hey, if you’re hungry, you gotta eat something! Just not fly eggs, I hope.
