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After Monday’s debacle concerning the untimely consumption of an insect and Tuesday’s unceasing rain, I spent most of Tuesday playing Playstation games on my PC. The emulator project ePSXe has come along very well, and now plays most games very well. I’ve been enjoying Legend of Mana, which is a continuation of a game called Secret of Mana that I have fond memories playing with Dustin back when we were rotten little youths. I’m not usually into games much, but sometimes, when the weather is bad, I like to just kick back and do something unproductive for a little while.

However, the real reason I’m making this post is to bring forth more information about the amount of insect parts found in common foods. Through Madalene, I got some good links, and some good information.

First, the amount of insect material in food products is governed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). They regulate all sorts of things related to food safety, but the documents we are interested in concern the Food Defect Action Levels program. This regulates the amount of insect parts, foreign plant matter, rodent filth and rotten parts that food can contain.

If you want to read a nice little article about the process, check out this Salon article called Bug heads, rat hairs—bon appetit. It is a pretty funny little read.

If you want some more detailed information, the main document, for your reading pleasure, is called the FDA/CFSAN Defect Action Level Handbook and it is quite an interesting read. For instance, here are the tolerances for peanut butter:

• Insect filth: No more than 30 insect fragments per 100 grams.
• Rodent filth: No more than 1 rodent hair per 100 grams.

• Grit: Gritty taste and water insoluble inorganic residue may not exceed 25mg per 100 grams.

  However, this last line is what I find most interesting (emphasis mine):

  DEFECT SOURCE: Insect fragments – preharvest and/or post harvest and/or processing insect infestation, Rodent hair – post harvest and/or processing contamination with animal hair or excreta, Grit – harvest contamination
  SIGNIFICANCE: Aesthetic

  Aesthetic? Well, I suppose its true, despite what some may choose to believe, a few rat hairs and insect legs isn’t going to hurt anybody! You might find it a bit bizarre to be eating insect crap, but really, its a small thing to our bodies. In fact, I’m willing to bet that decreased usage of pesticides and an increase in ‘organic’ farming techniques will only mean skyrocketing insect part levels in food. I’m not bothered by that prospect overly much. I don’t fancy eating bugs, seeing as how I am a vegetarian, but at the same time, a realization has to be made that bugs are everywhere, and invariably will end up in whatever you are eating. It isn’t cruel, its just the nature of being an insect who can crawl into anything, has 300 babies at a time and lives for two weeks. Plus, caterpillars have as much protein by weight as beef, but with much less fat, 10 times as much iron, and many other vitamins as well. I suppose accidentally eating a few isn’t really that bad of an idea.

  However, this still doesn’t address the question of how the insect parts are counted. For that, we need to look to another document, called the Macroanalytical Procedures Manual. This document contains procedures for doing all sorts of filth-tests. For the most part, it seems simple filtration serves to identify insect matter and excrement in the food products. Also, various methods of digesting the food product in acids, and then separating any undigested material (such as the insect heads). Happy reading.

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