Bugs in the pantry and sprouting with the jar/mesh lid ???

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

Any words of wisdom on keeping the little moth looking bugs out of my dry beans and flours? They get into baking mixes, cereal, and everything else that's dry and meant for human consumption! I've tried zip-locks and plastic containers. What am I doing wrong??

Oh, and how exactly do you sprout beans in the qt (or slightly bigger) jar with the mesh lid? I have the jar and the beans and seeds (that the bugs havn't got), but don't really know how.

Thanks, you guys (and ladies) are always so helpful! :-)

-- Marty (Mrs.Puck@Excite.com), January 07, 2001

Answers

The bugs are hatching from eggs that were probably in the food long before you bought it. You can freeze stuff in a deep freeze for a couple of days, take it out for a few days and refreeze for a few more. The cycling of the temperature tricks the eggs into hatching and then refreezes them when they are volerable. You can also pack grains and beens and such in an oxigen free container for long-term storage. www.waltonfeed.com has packing information.

http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/Horticulture/g886.htm

and

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/scripts/htmlgen.exe?DOCUMENT_MV024

should help with the sprouting.

==>paul

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), January 07, 2001.


I used to have terrible troubles with both those little bronze-brown beetle-like bugs that bore thru the bags, and indian meal moths. Freezing down will help to kill larva and eggs, but you need temperatures greater than most home freezers will achieve. (I put them out in a cardboard box on the deck for a few weeks in winter -- THAT's cold enough!)

DE - Diatomacous Earth -- mixed in with beans and grains has also greatly helped, so far, I haven't found a bug in any of my storage buckets yet (DE, then oxygen absorbers and sealed in a special mylar bag in a screw-lock bucket. Ziplocs won't do it).

Since you've already got an infestation -- throw out anything with the bugs already in it. Get yourself pantry traps for meal moths, they do catch quite a lot of them, altho I hand-catch and kill dozens more. If they're in things like beans, you can probably salvage them for use in the near future by just rinsing the bugs out before cooking and remove any webs (if slight). If you want to try longer term saving, sieve out the bugs, add DE powder, and put them out in the cold a while. That should help. Or feed it to the livestock -- a few bugs will not hurt, especially chickens and the like. More protein! I also store things like the flour I'm currently using in glass jars with rubber ring seals so that there is no cross contamination if one product brings it into the house. Especially store any bird seed you may be feeding wild birds out of the house proper -- that is notorious for bringing in bug infestations. (I store that in metal garbage cans on the deck)

As far as the sprouting goes, my thumbnail method is to soak the seeds overnight in tepid water, with a couple drops of GSE (Grapefruit seed extract) in it. Next day, drain and rinse well. In the evening I rinse again. Third day, if it's not already sprouted enough, I rinse three times and continue to do so three times a day (use a couple drops of GSE again once a day) until they're the size I want to serve. You can buy or fashion a rack that holds the jar at a slight incline with the mesh down and the jar slightly up, and this seems to keep water from puddling in the jar and spoiling, because it keeps draining but the contents stay moist.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), January 07, 2001.


Julie: what does the GSE do?? I have never used that, other than that, I sprout just about the way you do. I do cover mung bean sprouts and don't let any light get to them and it keeps them from getting brown. Alfalfa I put right in the window to get as much "greens" as I can.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 07, 2001.

GSE is an anti-bacterial that is safe for human, canine, equine, feline, avian, and probably the whole other gamut's consumption. If keeps down any questionable bacteria that have gotten sprouts a bad rap lately in the popular press. I also use it to clean my sponges (between heat sterilizations),cutting boards, and counter tops. It's much safer than chlorine bleach.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), January 08, 2001.

You may be able to de-bug some of the flours in the microwave if you have one, put a couple cupfulls at a time on a shallow tray and zap it for a few seconds. BUT....this could be cumbersome for large amounts, and you don't want to "change" the flour by zapping for too long. Not good for things like the beans. Freezing is probably your best bet, doesn't change it in any way, should kill off most of the bug eggs. I know what a pain in the butt those little bugs are, when I lived in Ohio I had a whole infestation explode in my apartment kitchen while we were away for a long holiday weekend. Had to throw out a lot of food...what a waste!

On a more humourous note, after that I kept my flours and cream of wheat, etc. in those big french storage jars with the snap lids. Friends of ours were having an anniversary, and I thought it would be neat to bake them one of those huge cookies and decorate it up and give them that instead of a card. The cookie came out beautifully, baked to perfection. Then I made a few smaller cookies with the leftover dough. Went to eat one of the smaller cookies. Found 2 fat worms in the small cookies! Needless to say, they got a traditional paper card. The ex husband, who was not about to let any cookie go to waste, worms or no, set about picking apart the big cookie and eating it. And, you guessed it...no more worms were found.

-- Chelsea (rmbehr@istar.ca), January 09, 2001.



Once you get rid of the bugs, put a bay leaf on every shelf. Keeps'em gone.

-- Carole Hall (carle@earthlink.net), March 07, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ