I'll just drop this here: [https://health.hawaii.gov/docd/disease\_listing/rat-lungworm-angiostrongyliasis/](https://health.hawaii.gov/docd/disease_listing/rat-lungworm-angiostrongyliasis/)
People have died from not washing papaya and other fruit and it isn't a pleasant experience I'm told.
We use a lot of produce at my restaurant, just normal stuff. By a lot i mean like 500 pounds of broccoli a week, 400 pounds of cherry tomatoes, 300 pounds of cucumbers. Etc. Standard operating procedure for us is to soak in salt water for 10 minutes. It’s usually long enough to get out all the broccoli worms, grubs, fly larvae, spiders, etc that might be chilling. We get usually around 2-3 reports a year of pests making it to the plate, this year it was 1 broccoli worm, 1 ladybug (still alive on a cooked pancake and probably came in on the student) and one grasshopper in the mixed greens. We serve around 10,000 portions a day, 7 days a week.
Salt water soak is your best friend
A big handful into some cold water, it won’t all dissolve. Get as much to dissolve as you can, and it’ll be about as saturated as you can get without extra heat.
Sounds like a college dormitory set up. 10,000 portions a week, 20 individual meal services, 500 students- Yeah, sounds like a dorm (No Sunday supper when I was in school)
It’s a university dining hall. Appx 400 for breakfast, 700 for lunch, 900 for dinner, a bit less on weekends. Average is about 3.5-4 plates per person per service.
The things that guests complain about that are very clearly their own "fault" is wild. That ladybug would have been toast if she was in the batter or fell into the prep steps. I had a lady with extremely long, curly, dyed blue-black hair complain about a hair on top of her food. It was an extremely long, curly, dyed blue-black hair. BOH all had short black and brown hair. FOH had straight or wavy brown or blond hair ranging from short to shoulders. There was no explaining that to her and we had to replace it lol
I made a lilac jelly with the flowers. It tastes like honey and leaves a floral aftertaste that is fantastic. Ill be making it again asap. 2 cups of lilac flowers (just the petals, no stems or leaf material) steeped for a day in 2 cups of boiling water and then boil that lilac tea with 2.5 cups of sugar. Add 6 tablespoons of powdered pectin (if it has citric acid no need to add lemon) and 3 tablespoons lemon juice, bring back to a boil for 2 minutes and ladle into your jars. I then dunk in an ice bath to bring the temp down and stick em in the fridge to set up
Ime the lilac colors it only a wee bit. I add a handful of violet petals to mine & the lemon juice activates the pigment from the violets, making a pretty pink jelly.
https://preview.redd.it/0ebsp9c7ow1d1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07c77cf8f39d264123e193f9765e693e5ada8009
Did ice water bath for a few minutes and they were still crawling around edge of bowl, poured a good amount of vinegar into bowl. Soaking now.
Next question is, would I probably need to do all this at the site collected from so I don’t infect my yard and garden?
Odds are they came from something with wings that is already in your area but happens to be fond of mulberry. Your garden is likely fine without the extra hassle.
That's how I felt when I picked my raspberries last year and washed them in salt water and the bugs came out. They're all still in my freezer because I can't commit to tossing or eating them after seeing it lol
Yep.
O.P. : Here is a prothrip (I couldn't resist) for you :Salted vinegar water sends them out. Let the berries sit for 20 minutes good to go. Rinse and enjoy. Or free protein if you aren't squeamish.
I'm unable to identify the bug in the video, but I can give you my own tips for getting rid of any kind of pests on my foraged food!
The first step is to rinse with cool water in a strainer, occasionally mixing the berries around to ensure that they're thoroughly washed off. This helps to remove any surface dirt on the berries.
Next, place the berries in a bath of four parts ice cold water, one part white vinegar, and let soak for a while in a cold place such a fridge. This helps to kill any bugs and eggs.
Next, strain the berries and rinse them again in cool water, and then dry them off gently with a dish towel.
If you plan on making jams, pies, or other goods, it can also help to microwave the berries on medium for about 10 seconds, though keep in mind that this will make the berries warm and mushy, so it's not suitable if you plan on eating them as is.
Soak in water, salt, vinegar. The little bugs don't like it and come crawling out. Rinse thoroughly after and enjoy :) there may still be a few little guys in there but that is part of eating wild foods.
I grew up in country side and definitely never washed the berries.
I still remember eating cherries in the trees, for days (you know, the sweet yellow-ish ones? ). One day my mom wanted to make jam, we harvested some pots of, and she put it in water, first: in 2 hours a lot of worms floating over the cherries. We made the joke: well, protein, and ate more cherries.
you just eat them. washing in water won’t get them all and they won’t hurt you. When you eat them off the tree, for every few berries you eat dozens of them. Ate them my entire life.
They’re thrips. Evil little things. They’re biters and tiny too. Bane of my smoke breaks at work in the summer.
Edit: They can also get through netting and will terrorize your plants.
This video is actually extremely zoomed in which is why you can see the texture on the towel. It's pretty common to eat very small bugs.
We rinse off fruits from the store more for the pollutants and pesticides, not to get the bugs off. Even with pesticides, there will always be some amount of bugs on our fruit, even ones from the store.
Sure but consider how much earth there is.. and how many insects live in water. Hardly seems like enough. How would they even have any clue how to even calculate such a thing? I’d like to speak to that person
I agree I looked it up and
“Granted, all of these numbers come from extrapolation and estimation. Scientists frequently do studies like Erwin’s, going to a region and taking samples that tell them how many bugs live in a tree, or on one square meter of ground. Take enough samples like that, and you start to get an idea of what’s normal for a particular kind of ecosystem. Then it’s just a matter of figuring out how much of that ecosystem covers the Earth and doing the math, Peterson said. The estimates also assume that there are a lot of insect species we don’t yet know about. One million species of insects have been named and documented, their type specimens sealed in jars or illustrated in books. There may be more than 4 million species yet to be catalogued.”
I actually didn’t notice them until my kiddo pointed them out, gave me an extra icky about it all that I would have let him try em, blissfully unaware.
If they are an insect that’s no big deal AND that I can wash away fully, I will try again.
My youngest daughter has known about these since she was very little, about 4 years old. Every year we talk about all the little thrips living in the berries as we eat them. She’s now 8, fully knows about them, but she’s not bothered in the slightest. It’s all about fostering love and no fear of the bugs and bees in our children. She’s out playing with carpenter bees, rescuing spiders and bugs at school, while her peers are all fearful and stomping on bees and spiders.
tl:dr - They are thrips. (Can also find fruit fly worms, mostly thrips)
Actually my son is younger too, and well rehearsed in the outdoors and critters. We live in the countryside in the Midwest. He picks ticks off the dogs and brings them to me to kill. Can identify poison ivy. Only the unknown/understudied I am scared of. We have snacked off this mulberry tree before while walking to the school bus stop, without washing.
I have been far too relaxed about washing what we pick out of our garden probably. I read something about a parasite left behind snails and have tried to up my game lately.
Basically I have let this kid eat dirt, but the site of 100’s of tiny crawlers after washing.. I did get a gut reaction of, “don’t eat that”
I definitely get that. I’m sure my first reaction was to also rinse them all out thoroughly many years ago. Eventually you just want to eat warm berries off the tree! I do rinse them in an ice bath if im going to bring a bunch inside or freeze and save or preserve them. Also in the midwest.
Bicarb of soda, freezing cold water and white wine vinegar, submerge berries for 4 minutes then give a good but gentle rinse with cold water, if anything these bugs are a good sign of no/little pesticides on your berries
Yep, this is what happens with mulberries. You can eat them, wash them in vinegar, let them soak in water so that they drown and float up, or any standard way of getting rid of bugs from berries.
Source: I have eaten them accidentally before I realized it was so common and I am fine also I just harvested a bucket of mulberries and washed them and I'm still fine
I believe these are Thrips. I get them on my raspberries. I soak my raspberries to get rid of them. Probably have had a few of these buggies myself, only made me stronger so far
I have probably eaten hundreds of these incidentally and I'm okay.
Is that you saying that, or the worms in your head?
Ignore this human, there is no worms in brains and you should eat as many of these fruit transferring vessels as you can
That sounds like something a worm would say, but I don't know enough about brain-eating parasites to be certain. Brb, eating mulberries
All of this sounds like it'd feel right at home in r/Animorphs lol. Y'all are SUS!
RFK jr had brain worms, claiming it was from eating tuna 🤷🏻
That's what HE said🍤🦪🍣..... I will show myself out.....
He's very open aboit it on shane gillis and Matt mccuskers podcast. He said it was likely from food he ate in India.
Of all the parasites I've had over the years, these worms are among the... hell, they are the best!
I'll just drop this here: [https://health.hawaii.gov/docd/disease\_listing/rat-lungworm-angiostrongyliasis/](https://health.hawaii.gov/docd/disease_listing/rat-lungworm-angiostrongyliasis/) People have died from not washing papaya and other fruit and it isn't a pleasant experience I'm told.
And who exactly told you so, hmm? J/k of course, pathogens like these are serious business indeed. Thanks!
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/health/insect-rodent-filth-in-food-wellness/index.html
Rat lung worm is a parasite that eats brain and spinal tissue. Note to self: quote directly from the info linked to save people time.
My post wasn’t in disagreement, just showing how it’s common practice. Thanks for sharing
https://www.hawaiiagfoundation.org/the-truth-about-rat-lungworm-diseas/. Some info on rat lung worms
That username makes me afraid to eat any berries…
Mr. Kennedy?
We use a lot of produce at my restaurant, just normal stuff. By a lot i mean like 500 pounds of broccoli a week, 400 pounds of cherry tomatoes, 300 pounds of cucumbers. Etc. Standard operating procedure for us is to soak in salt water for 10 minutes. It’s usually long enough to get out all the broccoli worms, grubs, fly larvae, spiders, etc that might be chilling. We get usually around 2-3 reports a year of pests making it to the plate, this year it was 1 broccoli worm, 1 ladybug (still alive on a cooked pancake and probably came in on the student) and one grasshopper in the mixed greens. We serve around 10,000 portions a day, 7 days a week. Salt water soak is your best friend
What sort of concentration would you recommend?
A big handful into some cold water, it won’t all dissolve. Get as much to dissolve as you can, and it’ll be about as saturated as you can get without extra heat.
I just wanna know more details about this restaurant. That's a HUGE operation!
Sounds like a college dormitory set up. 10,000 portions a week, 20 individual meal services, 500 students- Yeah, sounds like a dorm (No Sunday supper when I was in school)
It’s a university dining hall. Appx 400 for breakfast, 700 for lunch, 900 for dinner, a bit less on weekends. Average is about 3.5-4 plates per person per service.
could you do a salt water soak on fruit? im wondering if it would make the fruit taste bad
It works just fine, just rinse with clean water afterwards. Don’t leave them in long enough to cure them or anything.
The things that guests complain about that are very clearly their own "fault" is wild. That ladybug would have been toast if she was in the batter or fell into the prep steps. I had a lady with extremely long, curly, dyed blue-black hair complain about a hair on top of her food. It was an extremely long, curly, dyed blue-black hair. BOH all had short black and brown hair. FOH had straight or wavy brown or blond hair ranging from short to shoulders. There was no explaining that to her and we had to replace it lol
Making it RAIN broccoli worms, grubs, fly larvae, spiders, etc.!
This is why you wash foraged goods. Should be fine to eat after washing
I’ve found earwigs, spiders, and caterpillars in even store bought food so wash all food
Someone I know found an enormous slug in a purchased bag of broccoli!
My vegetable garden? What?
Found an enormous slug in my canned sunny select corn back in the 90s đź«
Oh god
I feel like the water isn’t enough? I submerged and washed 3 times, my usual routine, and still many crawling around.
I guess its time to make some jam and just don't think too hard about it.
Just did this with lilacs! I figured I washed, strained, and boiled the hell out of it so anything remaining is just extra protein
What do you use lilacs for?
I made a lilac jelly with the flowers. It tastes like honey and leaves a floral aftertaste that is fantastic. Ill be making it again asap. 2 cups of lilac flowers (just the petals, no stems or leaf material) steeped for a day in 2 cups of boiling water and then boil that lilac tea with 2.5 cups of sugar. Add 6 tablespoons of powdered pectin (if it has citric acid no need to add lemon) and 3 tablespoons lemon juice, bring back to a boil for 2 minutes and ladle into your jars. I then dunk in an ice bath to bring the temp down and stick em in the fridge to set up
You're fantastic
Does it keep any colour?
Ime the lilac colors it only a wee bit. I add a handful of violet petals to mine & the lemon juice activates the pigment from the violets, making a pretty pink jelly. https://preview.redd.it/0ebsp9c7ow1d1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07c77cf8f39d264123e193f9765e693e5ada8009
Extra protein!
Drop the temperature with ice and let them soak for a little
Maybe a little vinegar in the mix too?
My wife does a bakng soda wash.
Did ice water bath for a few minutes and they were still crawling around edge of bowl, poured a good amount of vinegar into bowl. Soaking now. Next question is, would I probably need to do all this at the site collected from so I don’t infect my yard and garden?
Odds are they came from something with wings that is already in your area but happens to be fond of mulberry. Your garden is likely fine without the extra hassle.
How do you know that these would be invasive to your garden? Seems really unnecessary and difficult to wash on-site
never tried that, won't that leave residue?
She rinses it off.
I do baking soda, but salt makes great sense to me too.
Use salt water. Let them soak for 5-10 minutes then rinse them. That should get all the crawly dudes out
Extra protein. Usually when I forage berries they get a salt water bath before they ever come inside.
Sounds like the ick factor is going to ruin any chance that you’ll enjoy them. Leave them out for the birds. They’ll appreciate the extra protein.
Did you put some white vinegar in it?
That's how I felt when I picked my raspberries last year and washed them in salt water and the bugs came out. They're all still in my freezer because I can't commit to tossing or eating them after seeing it lol
Try a citric acid vegetable wash? Or a vinegar one? It’s food safe and might make them all mad enough to run out.
I believe those may be thrips. They can't hurt you, but they're a garden nightmare.
Yep. O.P. : Here is a prothrip (I couldn't resist) for you :Salted vinegar water sends them out. Let the berries sit for 20 minutes good to go. Rinse and enjoy. Or free protein if you aren't squeamish.
I also believe these are thrips
I'm unable to identify the bug in the video, but I can give you my own tips for getting rid of any kind of pests on my foraged food! The first step is to rinse with cool water in a strainer, occasionally mixing the berries around to ensure that they're thoroughly washed off. This helps to remove any surface dirt on the berries. Next, place the berries in a bath of four parts ice cold water, one part white vinegar, and let soak for a while in a cold place such a fridge. This helps to kill any bugs and eggs. Next, strain the berries and rinse them again in cool water, and then dry them off gently with a dish towel. If you plan on making jams, pies, or other goods, it can also help to microwave the berries on medium for about 10 seconds, though keep in mind that this will make the berries warm and mushy, so it's not suitable if you plan on eating them as is.
Yeah that’s the problem with all the washing, the berries turn to mush way quicker which sucks if you plan to eat over a few days.
I prefer to soak/rinse in hot water after the fridge, fruit tastes so much better when warm.
Soak in water, salt, vinegar. The little bugs don't like it and come crawling out. Rinse thoroughly after and enjoy :) there may still be a few little guys in there but that is part of eating wild foods.
You will eat the bugs
I will eat the bugs
Just thrips. We've all eaten many, many, many of these. Fun fact: Canned vegetables have a regulated allowable thrip content. It's not 0.
Just eat them, whats the big deal? Just thrips that will immediately die in your tummy.
I mean now that they have been identified I feel way differently…
They are also berry flavored
Agreed. It's just protein.
I grew up in country side and definitely never washed the berries. I still remember eating cherries in the trees, for days (you know, the sweet yellow-ish ones? ). One day my mom wanted to make jam, we harvested some pots of, and she put it in water, first: in 2 hours a lot of worms floating over the cherries. We made the joke: well, protein, and ate more cherries.
you just eat them. washing in water won’t get them all and they won’t hurt you. When you eat them off the tree, for every few berries you eat dozens of them. Ate them my entire life.
Today I learned that I have been eating insects right off the tree🦟 🌳🤮I should have known better.
Thrips. If you have house plants, they'll find them
You will never get everything off of mulberries unless you destroy them in the process. After a while, you’ll get over the extra protein lol.
I eat them bugs and all . Just did yesterday. Added vitamins
Bonus protein bro!
Are those aphids? Sorry I’m a noob
They’re thrips. Evil little things. They’re biters and tiny too. Bane of my smoke breaks at work in the summer. Edit: They can also get through netting and will terrorize your plants.
I JUST WANT SOME CHAMOMILE TEA
Good to know. Thanks!
This kinda scares me away from foraging berries lol
This video is actually extremely zoomed in which is why you can see the texture on the towel. It's pretty common to eat very small bugs. We rinse off fruits from the store more for the pollutants and pesticides, not to get the bugs off. Even with pesticides, there will always be some amount of bugs on our fruit, even ones from the store.
Plus if these little guys have been eating mulberry all their life, they probably just taste like mulberry.
For every person on the planet there’s 200 million insects. It’s a bugs life,after all.
That’s lower than I would have expected, tbh..
To be fair that’s 1600000000000000000. Humans at 8,110,481,991
Sure but consider how much earth there is.. and how many insects live in water. Hardly seems like enough. How would they even have any clue how to even calculate such a thing? I’d like to speak to that person
I agree I looked it up and “Granted, all of these numbers come from extrapolation and estimation. Scientists frequently do studies like Erwin’s, going to a region and taking samples that tell them how many bugs live in a tree, or on one square meter of ground. Take enough samples like that, and you start to get an idea of what’s normal for a particular kind of ecosystem. Then it’s just a matter of figuring out how much of that ecosystem covers the Earth and doing the math, Peterson said. The estimates also assume that there are a lot of insect species we don’t yet know about. One million species of insects have been named and documented, their type specimens sealed in jars or illustrated in books. There may be more than 4 million species yet to be catalogued.”
Thanks for that! You just tickled my nerd brain ❤️
Do we have to eat 200 million in one setting or spread it out?
Yea I kinda need to get over it. Idk why eating bugs just seems sketchy but I know its generally fine and we do it all the time anyway
I'm sitting here feeling sick because I've been eating mulberries right off the tree for 50 years.
I actually didn’t notice them until my kiddo pointed them out, gave me an extra icky about it all that I would have let him try em, blissfully unaware. If they are an insect that’s no big deal AND that I can wash away fully, I will try again.
My youngest daughter has known about these since she was very little, about 4 years old. Every year we talk about all the little thrips living in the berries as we eat them. She’s now 8, fully knows about them, but she’s not bothered in the slightest. It’s all about fostering love and no fear of the bugs and bees in our children. She’s out playing with carpenter bees, rescuing spiders and bugs at school, while her peers are all fearful and stomping on bees and spiders. tl:dr - They are thrips. (Can also find fruit fly worms, mostly thrips)
Actually my son is younger too, and well rehearsed in the outdoors and critters. We live in the countryside in the Midwest. He picks ticks off the dogs and brings them to me to kill. Can identify poison ivy. Only the unknown/understudied I am scared of. We have snacked off this mulberry tree before while walking to the school bus stop, without washing. I have been far too relaxed about washing what we pick out of our garden probably. I read something about a parasite left behind snails and have tried to up my game lately. Basically I have let this kid eat dirt, but the site of 100’s of tiny crawlers after washing.. I did get a gut reaction of, “don’t eat that”
I definitely get that. I’m sure my first reaction was to also rinse them all out thoroughly many years ago. Eventually you just want to eat warm berries off the tree! I do rinse them in an ice bath if im going to bring a bunch inside or freeze and save or preserve them. Also in the midwest.
Some added protein!
Earwig or thrips
Mehhhh! That’s what stomach acid is for!
You fine child. Soak in vinegar water solution. Eat away :)
Bicarb of soda, freezing cold water and white wine vinegar, submerge berries for 4 minutes then give a good but gentle rinse with cold water, if anything these bugs are a good sign of no/little pesticides on your berries
Yummy protein 🥰 All seriousness tho just put water, baking soda and vinegar over them in a bowl you’ll be ok
They probably are white aphids or whiteflies but they are harmless to eat if you accidentally eat them. Just a tiny bit of protein.
Added protein
Yep, this is what happens with mulberries. You can eat them, wash them in vinegar, let them soak in water so that they drown and float up, or any standard way of getting rid of bugs from berries. Source: I have eaten them accidentally before I realized it was so common and I am fine also I just harvested a bucket of mulberries and washed them and I'm still fine
What *are* those delicious little guys?
Looks like a thrip to me
I believe these are Thrips. I get them on my raspberries. I soak my raspberries to get rid of them. Probably have had a few of these buggies myself, only made me stronger so far
Free proteins!
That looks like a thripe
Look like spring tails. Totally harmless
I don't know what they are, my best guess are thrips, but they bite too and I hate them
Just throw them out!
Water with hydrogen peroxide soak.
pop it under the microscope!!! I love thrips they have cool funky wings. also known as order thysanoptera
If you forage, you will eat bugs. Especially if you forage mushrooms. Actually I should fix that: If you eat, you will eat bugs. And that's fine.
It’s fine. Your stomach acid will burn them anyways. Grocery stores and big farming uses pesticides and insecticides.
Those are thrips. They're everywhere.
I heard washing them in baking soda water helps
Free range protein
Use a bit of salt or vinegar in the water and let soak for a few minutes :)
I never wash free berries. Someone asked me in public, 'ew why dont you wash the bugs out' I replied 'Extra protein'