Pantry Panic- Day 3

This is the last post from my guest writer Emily and her pantry panic in dealing with food bugs. If you have questions for her, leave a comment and she can do a follow-up post with any additional concerns or questions that you have.

Read below as she offers help and suggestions on cleaning out, deciding what to keep or toss and how to know if the bugs are really gone or not!

Day 3:

Now you know it can happen to you, and you know what to do to help prevent the problem. But what if you realize you have bugs, too? If you find bugs, here is what you have to do:

- Throw away anything with a bug in or on it. Moan and complain at yourself for not keeping things better contained as you pitch $100 in food.
- Okay, technically, you can apparently still eat it. You can freeze the product, or put it in the oven at a low temperature for a while, and kill the bugs. (Look up the details on how to actually do this if you’re interested). Note that you are not magically removing them, they are just going to quit moving, and then you will eat them. I was not willing to go this route, but you may be. You will not know until you look into a can of flour, see a wriggling mass of tiny bugs amid the food, and gauge how you feel about it.
- To inspect items like boxes of pasta or bags of flour, open them up, pour them into a glass bowl or zip top bag, and look closely. Look into the empty box or bag as well. If you find nothing, keep it. Throw away the packaging. Put it in good canisters, or put it in zip top bags that you seal and put in other containers until you find good quality air tight containers.
- Anything that you are keeping that you know is safe like canned goods or bottles of oil must be washed in hot soapy water, since it could have eggs on it. Yes, this is disgusting to even think about. Dry thoroughly.
- If you want to keep something that you can’t wash, but feel is safe (such as some packets of muffin mix I had), place the entire package in a large zip top bag and look closely at the bag a few times over the next few days. This will contain anything that happened to be in there, and allow you to see it better if something does come out. Use it as soon as possible, and inspect the food itself carefully before you prepare and eat it.
- Think about items like potatoes and onions, both of which were in my pantry. I could see no bugs on them, but I didn’t want to put them back in the pantry and risk re-contaminating the space, in case they had something on them I couldn’t see. Since I was going to wash or peel and then cook them before use, I decided to put them in the fridge in a plastic bag until I could use them, therefore killing and containing anything potentially on them, and focus on using them quickly since you aren’t supposed to store either at such a cool temperature.
- Remove any canisters or plastic bins in your pantry and wash them thoroughly. Even if nothing got IN your canister, wash the outside.
- Vacuum out the cabinets (take the vacuum bag or canister outside immediately!). Wash out the cabinets with hot soapy water to physically remove any bugs or food crumbs.
- Decide whether you are going to spray the inside of the cabinets with insecticide. There are some products that say they can be used inside cabinets and cupboards, and that specifically target pantry bugs, as long as you let dry before putting your food back. I did go this route, let it dry overnight, and then put my food back in. I wouldn’t do this as a preventative measure, but it’s amazing how your tolerance to toxic chemicals go up when you see thousands of bugs in your food. Some people may still not want to do this, and that’s understandable.
- Some people say a dried bay leaf in your containers will offer further protection against bugs. I’m not sure if this is true, but it seems to be a safe easy method to try and I’ll probably throw a few in as added protection.
- Put some sticky boards in your pantry to help you monitor the situation. There are some triangle/pyramid shaped ones available, to keep you from gluing your can of tomatoes to a bug trap, as well as some specifically designed to attract pantry bugs. Check them every few days to see how many bugs they have attracted. The life cycle of some of these bugs is about 8 weeks, so you need to know if new ones are hatching or more start appearing. And once they have been clear for a few weeks, you can stop being afraid to open food containers and glaring suspiciously at any crumb on your counter.

It’s been an experience. I’m fortunate that I caught it before it got everything – luckily my extensive spice cabinet was spared. I’m relieved no one has eaten at my house recently, because I’d wonder if I fed them bugs! I’ve learned that bad bugs happen to good people, even if you keep a pretty clean kitchen. And I think it could be worse - this is better than mice, or roaches, or a number of other horrific infestation options. Hopefully this will help you not make some of the mistakes I did, and be prepared if you ever have a similar problem.