I’m not sure what’s more disgusting, the dead bugs, or paying $4.00 for a paper cup of freeze-dried pea soup. Elaine writes:
I bought a Health Valley split pea soup at Publix Supermarket in Miami, FL on Friday 01/11/08 in the morning before coming in to work. Around 12:30 or so when I finally felt ready to have lunch, I opened the soup only to find it infested with dead bugs.
There was actually one live one still crawling around in there but by the time I found my camera to take a picture it had escaped. All the brown things are actually dead bugs. People should be aware of these types of dry soups. Such a disappointment…not to mention that these soups cost around $4.00.
We asked Elaine if she took it back to Publix and she said, ‘Honestly, I was so disgusted that I couldn’t fathom putting that thing in my car. I threw it away.” Ew. Can anyone identify the bugs? How, and when, did they get in there?
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Part of what happened is that back in the 80s with the deregulation of interstate trucking was that the trucks are no longer cleaned and/or fumigated. So food gets cross-contaminated and infested with bugs while being trucked around. It causes huge losses for the grocery store because they get stuff off the truck with critters in it, which then spreads around their warehouse.
It’s very important to let the stores know when you get stuff that’s infested. Most of it is harmless (the grain moths) in the sense that you won’t get sick, but you should get your money back and they should address whether it’s in their warehouse or some other place so they can pull the product.
I think it’s irresponsible for someone to take the time to write to a blog but not even call up the store where it was purchased or email the company with the info about the infestation … Consumerist, you took the time to email her with questions, why not give her the same advice you give the rest of us … tell the company who made it and the company who sold it to you!
“No soup for you!”
I’ve just sort of lost my appetite. I really shouldn’t have read this while eating. Then again, if I had read this after eating, I’d freak out a little, wondering whether all I just ate was just merely a salad.
Let’s not forget about OTHER things that end up in our food. Way back when sodas came in glass bottles in those cardboard six pack holders, I pulled a bottle of root beer out and saw a folded up Lay’s Potato Chip bag inside. It was obviously recycled by someone who fell asleep while monitoring the endless conveyor belt. : )
If you’re dumb/lazy enough to spend $4 dollars on 8 oz of split pea soup when you can buy an entire pound of dried peas for a buck, well…
I once bought a packet of peanuts late at night at a gas station; I was finishing a long drive home and was ravenous. I opened it up without really looking and tilted the bag back into my mouth for some peanuts –
– and instead got a huge hunk of human hair.
I failed to contact Planters, as I was too busy gagging. However, my appetite was definitely no longer an issue. It was years before I could eat nuts again, and I still inspect carefully.
@j-damn: Yeah, I’ll just cook up a huge vat of soup at the office tomorrow. Great tip, genius!
this was the completely organic version. know i bet the op is all for pesticides and preservatives if they weren’t already!
I almost cried when I saw this article; I’ve been eating these soups for the past few days because my girlfriend doesn’t like them! :- I really hope I didn’t eat any bugs, because I just peel back the lid half way, fill to fill line, and microwave…
(((((((((((( X_X
I just had a bag of cat litter that had the grain moths (I think) Since I use a plastic container for daily feedings and fill it up from a big bag, it had been sitting in my closet for about 3 weeks (holidays) I opened the door Tuesday morning and there are maggots on the bag, in the food, cocoons on the closet wall and live flying bug/moths. I immediately threw that bag out. Still cleaning up the bugs. Thankfully I haven’t found any aside the ones that try to escape (they die).
@TangDrinker:
Same here. I also worked in a “health food” store in high school, needless to say, I don’t shop there anymore. The webs, moths and weevils were one thing, but It was when the vegan girl that I worked with bit into an organic fig only to end up with a mouth full of flies (actually Fig Wasps) that took the cake.
Personally I was raised vegetarian until I tasted bacon at 13 years old.
I remain convinced that “organic” is just a joke played on Vegans to get them to eat some more animal protein.
What was the expiration date on the soup? I’ve found bugs in expired foods before, insect eggs get in somehow, they hatch and then they eat.
Those types of bugs are everywhere in South Florida. They can get into most packaging unless it’s airtight, which is why most Floridians keep their bread and pasta products under wraps. This EASILY could have happened while the product was in her possession if she didn’t keep it under wraps. Just sayin.’
@ANTRACK
Those are all over California, as well. They will burrow right through cardboard. If you get a few of them in a container, they will multiply like crazy. We had to have one of our apartments fumigated to get rid of them a few years ago.
Am I the only one who has been mis reading the brand as “Death Valley”?
I read an article recently somewhere (don’t ask me to find it, that’s google’s job) urging us to eat more insects….a much more environmentally friendly form of getting protein in our diet. Better than vegetables or meet.
How committed to the environment are you now all you tree-huggers?!??! Or are you only green when it’s convenient?!
HAHAHAHA.
@bluebuilder: It’s spelled MEAT, i know.
Reminds me of when some guy found a dead frog in a can of Kroger soup a few years back. Now that’s “MMM…MMM…good!”
@bluebuilder:
There is always the article [ohioline.osu.edu] which states “Entomophagy (the eating of insects) has yet to become a day-to-day activity for most people in the United States and Europe in spite of the superior nutritional content of edible insects compared to other animals”
Moreover it has nutritional values and recipes like:
Banana Worm Bread
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup dry-roasted armyworms
Mix together all ingredients. Bake in greased loaf pan at 350 deg F for about one hour.
Yum?!?
I eat those soups all the time and I never pay more than $2.
*shudder* It’s like when I watch Man vs. Wild, I always look away when he’s eating some insect or some other formerly live animal. I think the worst one has to be when he ate a little snake. Ugggh. Bugs are bad though, it makes my stomach turn when he shows the bug and then on top of that disgusting view, he has to eat it.
I hate bugs.
@JD: What about the episode where he crawled inside of a dead camel, and got water by squeezing it’s stomach contents. That’s nothing compared to some bugs. Of course, they have revealed that Bear Grills has spent nights in hotels when he makes us believe he was “roughing” it. Survivor man is the tough guy.
I had a tiny moth fly out of a sealed box of velveeta shells & cheese I opened. I immediately tossed it out & that’s it. Was a little pissed that I wasted a couple of bucks on a tainted product, but thankfull that I discovered it & didnt eat it.
Well in all fairness it’s not just organics. Last month I had to throw out a few boxes of Kroger saltines near their expiration date because I could see live larvae and bugs in the -unopened- packaging. When I was a kid in Germany in the 1970s (military dependent) it wasn’t uncommon to find cereal infested with bugs or ants… the regular old Kelloggs boxes that came from the states. I think a lot of food is infested but you don’t see the signs until it’s near expiration, and most supermarket stuff rarely gets to that stage before it’s used.
Ew. Not getting these again. Maybe that’s why the mix in all of the Healthy Valley soup cups I’ve tried seemed to be dead-set against dissolving like a normal soup cup’s
Not to excuse the bugs, but:
Complain to Health Valley. When I was a little kid, my mom bought something (maybe another soup?) that tasted terrible. Since she liked their other products, she wrote them a nice letter saying she was surprised given their high standards. A few weeks later, we got a package the size of a coffee table filled with free food from them.
A few years later, the same thing happened, and we got ANOTHER big package, though it was closer to the size of an end table.
$4 for that! You can buy a can of soup cheaper! I would still contact the company, how many more have dead bugs.
one thanksgiving we found a dried up lizard in a coffee mug. never found stuff in food, though.
From the US Food and Drug Administration
[vm.cfsan.fda.gov]
Review this section of the Code of Federal Regulations
The Food Defect Action Levels
Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods
that present no health hazards for humans
RAISINS, GOLDEN Insects and insect eggs
10 or more whole or equivalent insects and 35 Drosophila eggs per 8 oz [drosophila is the fruit fly].
TOMATOES, CANNED Drosophila fly
Average of 10 or more fly eggs per 500 grams
OR
5 or more fly eggs and 1 or more maggots per 500 grams
OR
2 or more maggots per 500 grams
This is the document that defines in the US what level of “defect” is allowable in commodity food products.
Q
@Quaoar:
Yeah, thanks for that. I’ll be right back, I just have to go vomit so hard it comes out of my nose.
I found hairs in a soup package like this. I called the company and they sent me numerous coupons for free product. I, like any good college student, used those free coupons and ate like a queen for a few days! Hair-shmair!
serves you right for buying “organic ramen noodles”
if you’re gonna go tasteless, do it full monty (cup-o-noodle or nissin). This product just screams white trash/faux high class status.
seriously, if all you need to do in order to prep a meal is pour hot water and wait 3 minutes, something is definitely wrong
Omg, gag. I’m making everything from scratch from now on.
Weevils, nothing more.
It’s larvae is in ANY unprocessed grain product; flour,wheat-germ(love the name),cereal, barley, corn meal,rice,beans, dry-soup, the list goes on.
More in some, less in others.
Doesn’t matter who’s name is on it.
It’s a natural thing; they’ve been around since groceries have been on the shelves and will always be there.
Thing is, you never know it until the temp’s just right and they hatch and start eatin’ and then you see these little black things in your cereal or the corn meal you bought 2 months ago that’s been siiting in the cabinet……..
Damned if we do – damned if we don’t. You think $4 a cup is expensive for soup? Wait till they remove all the undocumented guest workers from the supply chain and replace them with legal ‘mericans (I’m a damn foreigner so save the hate mail) who want a living wage and benefits – you’re either going to be eating $20.00 cups of soup with just as many bugs in them, or $4.00 cups of bugs with some soup. Can you imagine how much intense manual labor would be involved in going through each and every speck of ingredients that go into modern “foodstuffs”?
PS: it would take about 10min to throw the ingredients into a crockpot – and maybe another 10min to ladle it out into tupperware that you can freeze and nuke when you get to work. $4 would probably get you enough rice peas carrots and spices for 20 meals.
They’re part of Health Valley’s new “organic” line.
I ate at a Burger King in San Jose once and got chicken filet and the fish was breaded but started to fall a part. As it did, I noticed black spots all over the food. I looked closer and it was dead ants, lots of them too. I complained to the manager and told him I would never eat there again. I gave him the food too.
Eeewwww. Reminds me of the time when we opened a box of Lindor chocolates with nuts.
Actually, there were WORMS in EACH candy. And the worst part : I’ve ate 2 already
I should have sued
We were so disgusted, we simply threw the box away.
Let’s say I’m not a fan of Lindor’s chocolates any more.
Well, I live in Texas and I eat crawfish. Imagine my surprise when I found that it’s considered optimal for there to be 12 to 13 large bugs in each dozen.
Went to dinner with the family at an older lady’s home. Only noticed the little dead meal worms in the noodles she cooked after our first helping! Yikes! Not her fault as she probably had the bad of noodles for years and couldn’t see well also…
I think all you people that throw away stuff that has bugs or other stuff in it should make an effort to either bring it back to the store or contact the manufacturer. I know that isn’t always possible, but if there is filth in on package, you can bet there is filth in more of the same product. Seems to me the best bet would be to bring it back to the store since other packages from the same batch are probably still on the shelf. Can’t say for sure, but I bet grocery stores have a process whereby they let the manufacturer know so things can be checked out. This might decrease the bugs & filth for everyone else.
For everyone that balked at the $4 price (cost of peas, cost of rice, etc.), I think the best deal for making a single serving of soup would be to grow all the ingredients yourself (buy a farm and tractor first & learn how to farm) and then make a giant barrel of the soup. Then you have enough soup for the whole year, and you can do the same next year for your next year’s soup. Seems like a lot of work, but you certainly won’t be paying $4 for a cup of soup.
I’d bring it back to show them immediately, so I could get the money from the lawsuit.
“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!”
“There can’t be, we used them all in the raisin bread.”
so What did you do? Did you choose the lesser of two Weevils? hah hah
Seriously though just because something is sealed doesnt mean it is not going to have bugs. Its part of life, grain, rice, cerial,, oatmeal it can all have bugs in it.
Sorry but $4 for dried soup/noodles is crazy, I hope its good because if not you are so getting taken.
You should have just taken it back to the store.
Look people mold, bugs and other pests in food is going to happen no matter how clean a place is. The world isnt a hermetically sealed and sterile so you will be eating stuff you didnt plan on eating.
Its called life. You just have to find a way to deal with it.
Oh and the weevils probably wouldnt kill you in fact they would be a good source of protein. Depending on how long they have been dead.
Ten to one odds there were a lot more then just one alive in that cup of Bugs hah hah