Infested Flour! | Imamother

chen

Mon, Sep 18 2006, 12:11 pm

hila wrote:

my 11 year old used it for straining his home made grape juice in it !! - "but it is parev Ima ")

mali

Mon, Sep 18 2006, 12:44 pm

SaraG wrote:

Why do you think the worst of me?

G-d forbid! We all love you SaraG!

I just really don't understand your posts here.

mimsy7420

Mon, Sep 18 2006, 12:46 pm

I do not have the room in my freezer to keep flour and sugar! A jar with a tight fitting lid is not enough?

mali

Mon, Sep 18 2006, 12:52 pm

For your info, our worst enemies in the kitchen are those moths, who look like small sticks when they rest (as opposed to those who spread their wings). They get into every hole, and scramble themselves into bags that look tightly closed. Then they lay their eggs there (look out for strings) and we end up with bags/containers of worms. If you see one like that in your kitchen, do away with it immediately!

sarahd

Tue, Sep 19 2006, 5:30 am

Both my SIL and my friend had that problem recently (in two different countries). Both ended up throwing out everything that was in the cabinet with the infested package. My friend even had to (insecticide) bomb her kitchen to get rid of them. Yucchhh.

TzenaRena

Tue, Sep 19 2006, 8:20 am

Lillyofthevalley wrote:

mali, we have that, its so frustrating, what can you do about it?

You have to remove everything, and wash out the shelves with a bleach solution. This advice was given to me by an exterminator.

mimsy7420

Tue, Sep 19 2006, 10:21 am

mali wrote:

Ohmigosh! We had that. I threw out everything in my cupboard that was opened, used duct tape to seal every box of duncan hines mix, cereal, anything that wasn't open, so nothing could get in. Everything goes into airtight plastic containers now. Washed my pantry with bleach and water. It was a nightmare. I dreamed about bugs in my sleep.

shalhevet

Tue, Sep 19 2006, 10:25 am

We have that every so often. I don't throw everything out, but usually check through everything open and throw out anything suspicious. It usually seems to start from dried fruit or nuts, or sometimes from products with flour in.

Motek

Tue, Sep 19 2006, 7:33 pm

only1 wrote:

I do not have the room in my freezer to keep flour and sugar! A jar with a tight fitting lid is not enough?

You don't need to keep sugar there, just flour. I don't think a jar with a lid is good because even after sifting flour and seeing that it's clean, if it sits around, bugs can develop.

Have you ever had pasta in a sealed bag from the store for a loooong time and then discovered bugs in it? Would you have seen bugs if you used it immediately? No. They develop later on. I also keep boxes of uncooked rice in the fridge.

and to answer your question sarahd - yes, I used the flour. I sifted it a second time.

mimsy7420

Wed, Sep 20 2006, 10:13 am

mali wrote:

So speaking about those horrible bugs yesterday, I had a bad bad dream about them last night! They were laying their eggs in my bed under my sheet! Aaaaaaaaah. So gross!

mali

Wed, Sep 20 2006, 2:06 pm

only1 wrote:

So speaking about those horrible bugs yesterday, I had a bad bad dream about them last night! They were laying their eggs in my bed under my sheet! Aaaaaaaaah. So gross!

Marion

Wed, Sep 20 2006, 3:11 pm

Bugs don't "develop". They can hatch from eggs that are already in your flour.

Bugs live in the bags of flour/sugar/grains, because they eat the glue that holds the bags together. For this reason it is recommended that you transfer such items to a container.

I use Tupperware containers. They are airtight. I don't sift my flour. I notice that whenever there are bugs, they climb to the top of the container, because there is no air but they are trying to find some. They usually die trying, and I just scoop them, and some of the flour, right out of the container. The rest of the flour is fine. (It also allows me to store 3kg of flour at a time...and I go through A LOT of flour!)

Motek

Thu, Sep 21 2006, 1:25 pm

Marion wrote:

Bugs don't "develop". They can hatch from eggs that are already in your flour.

Which is what I meant by develop, but as I wrote, you can have a clean closed package of pasta which, if you boiled it today, would be fine, but if you waited six months you might find is buggy. So where did those eggs come from? Scratching Head

chen

Thu, Sep 21 2006, 1:35 pm

From the factory, from the warehouse, from the supermarket shelf...there is no such thing as a pest-free food processing or storage plant. Health depts. have standards for maximum allowable concentrations of various types of contamination, b/c it is impossible to be 100% clean.

Along the same lines, not to gross you out...every restaurant, hotel and catering establishment has vermin. EVERY one. The difference is what kind, how many, and how visible. Hey, exterminators gotta make a living, too.

mimsy7420

Thu, Sep 21 2006, 2:09 pm

chen wrote:

Blech

Motek

Thu, Sep 21 2006, 4:22 pm

And after sifting flour - there shouldn't be any eggs, right? Yet, if you leave the sifted flour out, especially in warm weather, it can become wormy. So where did those eggs come from?

chen

Fri, Sep 22 2006, 8:39 am

Motek wrote:

And after sifting flour - there shouldn't be any eggs, right?

In your dreams. Only if your sieve is so fine that it practically holds water. Few people own a sifter that fine--if you did have one, it would take forever to sift the flour. You ever see a roach egg? It's about the size of a poppy seed, maybe smaller. Flour buggies are a lot smaller than roaches--some of them are only 1/10 of an inch long--and their eggs are barely visible.

yedidya's mom

Sun, Sep 24 2006, 1:34 pm

to repeat shimmy's mom's question- do I have to sift flour in the usa? im moving in a few weeks and need to know if I should pack my sifter