Chickpeas and bugs

td

Having a really bad week if you read my last post too!

Came back from holiday on Friday to a house infested with small beetle like bugs. Cleaned house and seemed to find where they were coming from - they seemed to have burrowed OUT of a packet of dried chickpeas. I've thrown out loads of food just to be on the safe side but wondered if anyone could shed any light on this. I've emailed Whitworths about it because I'm a little worried about them being dangerous in some way.

td

Dee123_2

http://www.csiro.au/images/general/PI_PeasWithWeevils.jpg

Are they this kind of weevil?


Quoted from this page: http://leisure.scotsman.com/foodanddrink/restaurants_headlines_specific.cfm?articleid=2995
Storage: Always decant into airtight containers and never mix old with new. Mark on the container the purchase date and best before date. As a guide, grains should be used within six months of purchase. After this there is a risk of the natural oils turning rancid. Store the containers in dry, cool and dark conditions. Pulses will last a lot longer, but as you will have no idea how long the pulses have been stored elsewhere it is best to use as soon as possible. The curse of grains, pulses, flour and rice are weevils. These horrid little creatures look disgusting and stomach churning when you see them in a container. What happens is the insects bury their eggs in the grains in the field. When the goods are processed most are killed off. Unfortunately some survive and develop when conditions are perfect. If you come across these invaders, bin the lot. Liz, my erstwhile friend, assures me that putting a bay leaf in beside the grains and flours will prevent them developing. I didn’t believe it but have tried it and it appears to work.

On the positive side, if you have mistakenly allowed one of the invaders into your dish then rest assured they are not dangerous and are harmless to human health.


I'd still complain though, but thats just me . I'm sorry, it must have been really unpleasant to come home to that.

Dee x

dooj

when i moved house last year i ripped out the exsisting kitchen to replace it with nice new one only to find a bug infestation (horror) they flew and everything... anyway they were actually pretty harmless and i too threw out all exsisting food and kept all new food in sealed containers i then phoned the council who sprayed my house up to 3 times (free of Charge) and this got rid of them. I also filled a spray bottle with bleach and water and went round skirting boards and little crevises of house just incase. (i could do this as house was empty cos we had just moved in)

td

Thanks - I think they were probably weevils - funnily enough I thought weevils were smaller and my husband thought they would havebeen bigger. Seem to have got them all now - fingers and toes crossed!

td

Jay-Jay_4

I had the same thing last year with a bag of bird seed that we'd left at the back of a kitchen cupboard. They looked like tiny beetles, about twice the size of an ant and they wandered everywhere so it took about a month to figure out where they were coming from....started off seeing one a day, then two, then three etc.......

We chucked out the seeds, sprayed liberal amounts of RAID and hoovered like mad. Never saw them again.