Gross Food Report

The United States has the highest food safety inspection standards in the world. In other words, our food is cleaner and safer to eat than any. But then, all food is..well..dirty to some extent. Hurry up and eat your lunch before reading what I will write here. If you don't, even if hungry for waiting, you might not have an appetite after reading what follows. This info was stolen from a magazine article which stole the information from FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) documents.

-Frozen broccoli is allowed an “average of 60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites per 100 grams.” So if you have 59 aphids, you're fine. 60 is where they draw the line. I wonder if the aphids make broccoli taste so weird to so many.

-Brussels sprouts brussels sprouts have only a 30 per 100 gram threshold than broccoli. Maybe the food police will classify Brussels sprouts as health food. 

-Canned and dried mushrooms are considered fit for your consumption if they contain up to 20 maggots of any size per 100 grams. Uh, those fast food chicken nuggets are beginning to look healthier all the time.

- Maybe fruit is cleaner? An average mold count of 20% or more is considered unsafe when it comes to canned pineapple. So if you open up a can and see that less than one fifth of it is moldy and disgusting, you should still eat it. I should order clean  french fries with my Mc D nuggets!

-Ginger is allowed to contain no more than an average of 3 milligrams of "mammalian excreta" per pound. That's poo!  Instead of saying "To be or not to be", Shakespeare should have asked a different question- How much poop in ginger is too much poop?
 
-5% of potato chips are allowed to contain rot. Not upsetting since we already see that black spot on some of the chips. I eat the rot and all. maybe that's why my brain is rotted?

-The FDA's inspectors threshold for insect filth in flour is an “average of 75 or more insect fragments per 50 grams.” For rodent filth, it's an “average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 50 grams.” Those gluten free nuts may make a point after all.

-Fig paste is unsafe if it “contains 13 or more insect heads per 100 grams of fig paste in each of 2 or more sub samples. Enjoy your next Fig Newton cookie.
 
-The FDA allows an “average of 5 or more whole or equivalent insects (not counting mites, aphids, thrips, or scale insects) per 100 grams of apple butter.” Since they are not counting mites, ahids, thrips or scale insects the sky is the limit for filth in apple butter.

Ok, we already know that bugs and filth are natural and present in all foods. This was just for effect. But I wonder how much more those trendy "organic' and "all natural" foods are. They must have far more filth and insect residue than the food that is treated with chemicals and insecticides. And I wonder what the food police who want me to stop eating both my aphid broccoli and Mc D chicken nuggets (Ok, that's part chicken and parts unknown) have to say about their even dirtier "health foods".