Poor Aunt Jemima can’t catch a break. First she is created whole cloth to remind middle class white children how nice it was back when our families could afford slaves. Then she has to serve her ungrateful, illusory masters meal worms.

Ken Wheaten got an inadvertent protein bonus in his pancake mix. Here was what would have been the best part, if we could read, but is still pretty good:

Aunt Jemima apparently has a script for such matters.

We immediately assumed there was a pre-built web form on Aunt Jemima’s website, where one could select how many bugs one had discovered, how one enjoyed the taste of blueberry syrup with maggot…that sort of thing. Sadly, Wheaton meant a script on the phone, read by a “flat, calm” customer service rep. That’s nearly as bad.

We were going to remind you how many insect parts the average American consumer eats in pre-packaged foods each year when we stumbled upon something way better in this 1989 report on speculative federal regulation on insects as foodstuff.

Frozen steamed ant eggs (Formicidae, Hymenoptera) from Thailand.
This product was adulterated with animal hairs (human, cat/dog, rat/mouse), feather barbules, mites, and insect fragments [violation of 403(a) (3)1]5
The product consisted largely of pupae, larvae and some adults, but very few eggs and was therefore misbranded (Sec 403)5.

Not enough steamed ant eggs to meet federal requirements.

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