aaaaaaaaaa

[silverflight8]

So I was putting rice into the rice cooker today for dinner. I looked down and I saw something brown amongst the white rice.

It was a mealworm, maybe half a centimeter long.

Now picture the scene: I'm squatting on the floor, just staring at this bowl of rice. (I keep rice in the bottom cupboards because it's heavy.) I was frozen.

On one hand, sometimes people pick weevils out of their flour and use it anyway. I had probably a quarter or a fifth of the bag left. I looked fearfully back into the bag; with some shaking I spotted another tiny one and abruptly stopped. The one in my bowl was mostly not moving, except when I shook it and it started walking. But that would be such a waste. I could pick them out. I could.

On the other hand, I was completely revolted.

I must have sat there for a minute or so, watching the little mealworm, but then the central question arose in my mind: can you bring yourself to eat this?

HAHA NO.

So that was my evening.

Lessons learned: do not buy so much rice when you don't eat that often. (I think the last time I ate rice from there was a couple weeks, so I'm going to assume there weren't any in there then, for my own sanity. I bought the rice a good year ago.) Don't keep rice there for so long and assume nothing's going to try to eat it. And for god's sake, look before you do anything!

The irony is that I knew it was a mealworm because in grade two, we had raised them on oats. I was quite happy to play with them at that age, but I suppose even seven-year-old me would have balked at eating those oats. (EWWWW.) I suppose it's a mercy that they were still in worm-stage instead of the beetle stage. That would have been infinitely worse.

I'm sorry to anyone on my flist who I recently friended. I swear my entries are usually much more palatable but I have to tell someone. The whole world.

Comments

[cordialcount]

... I mix brown rice and white rice at home. The brown rice grains rather resemble worms when cooked amidst the white rice grains, so I try not to look at my bowl too much to begin with, and now I'm terrified of what I may have already eaten.

Sorry your dinner went so! Shuddering in sympathy.

[silverflight8]

Haha oh god. Ignorance is bliss. I'm pretty sure the reason mine developed GROSS UGLY BUGS was because it was rarely eaten and had been sitting there for an actual year + months. I don't eat rice that often (a childhood of it has kind of...left me apathetic, and also I often don't put on the cooker before I start frying.) So as long as you don't have it for eveeeer you probably wouldn't have problems. My family regularly bought gigantic bags of rice, I've eaten rice for decades and honestly this is the first time. Which is also why I'm so grossed out.

Thanks. It's kind of funny in retrospect...sorta. Someday it will be really funny.

[ar]

OH DEAR GOD. This is awful to say, but I'm glad it happened to you and not me--I'm not sure my roommate would ever eat my cooking again! You have all my sympathies, poor thing. I hope you found something else edible for the evening.

FWIW, if you get an airtight container to put your rice in, you can still reap the benefits of buying it in bulk. I always transfer mine immediately after I buy it--same with flour and sugar.

[silverflight8]

Haha I'm glad it's not happening to you! I may be motivated to share my pain with the entire internets, but I definitely don't want anyone else finding them in their rice. Especially since that would make global populations of mealworms bigger D:

Hm, good idea! I do that with flour, but I'd bought a lot of rice (ten pounds, I think?) I should do that with sugar, you're right. I've got it wrapped up in a plastic bag, but now I'm kind of afraid to look inside (I keep sugar in a small tin for easy access, and refill periodically.)

[starriheavens.livejournal.com]

AT WORK WE ARE PUTTING TOGEHTER LABS TO MAKE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS DO AND ONE OF THEM IS RAISING MEALWORMS AMG THEY'RE SO DISGUSTING.

i just wanted to share.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

In retrospect they are SO GROSS. Like worms with feet. Ughhhhh I'm so glad I didn't hate them then! EWwwwww.

Don't worry, I shared first :x

ETA: I thought you were working in a chem field? Why do you have to deal with mealworms? :(

[starriheavens.livejournal.com]

I'm working at a textbook writing company writing science textbooks for elementary school! :3

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Oh cool! That seems like a really good fit for you too :)

[gothrockrulz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's definitely not a fun sight when you're cooking.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

This has never happened to me before D:

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, but my sympathies. Still, at least you noticed it before you cooked the rice! I imagine cooked mealworm would be much more disgusting.

I've worked in some weird rural conditions where the choice was occasionally "eat around the bug or don't eat", so I am perhaps less grossed out by this than I should be, but it's still such an completely unpleasant thing to deal with.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I noticed, too. Though ignorance is bliss??

Haha I'm sure that if I was really desperate and had no other food I'd probably...deal...but in these circumstances I'd rather buy new food :s

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, new food is the best choice! But I've been in some places where stores were closed or too far away to get to until the next day, or storage conditions were... inadequate, let us say.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

D: On the other hand, you are more likely to survive in a zombie apocalypse. You already have some of the requisite mental preparation.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

And I haven't even mentioned some of the places I've had to use as a bathroom!

I am fully ready for the zombie apocalypse, except for the fact that I have no useful post-apocalyptic skills. I've never even held a gun, I can't produce food or trade items, I don't know anything about medicine... but I can eat almost anything!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Being able to eat things is very important. You have to keep your energy up and everything, in order to run or just get more food or think of solutions.

I've used a gun before! And a bow and arrow. I have terrible vision though, I'm not sure how good I'd be at actually hitting things to eat, especially if I lost my glasses at any point (then I would be totally incapacitated.)

I guess the point is that assuming you have a good group of people you trust not to literally stab you in the back, zombie apocalypses are best survived in groups. Then you can pool skillsets.

[mezzogiorno.livejournal.com]

Oh no! :(

I had a similar experience last night with some kale; it had tons of little caterpillars in their cocoons, and I had washed all of them out once. When I turned around to get the washed pieces there was a MASSIVE one crawling on the chopping board. I just couldn't do it.

No more kale for me.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Oh god nooooo D:

I don't want to think about cooking rice for awhile either. Ewww.

[twilightthief.livejournal.com]

I wouldnt have been able to eat it either!
Thats good info though because I really want a rice cooker and if I do get one I would get bigger bags of rice.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Haha all I can say is don't leave your rice there too long...or as someone on DW said, putting it in an airtight container will probably help :x

Rice cookers make life so much easier. I can't imagine trying to cook rice in a pot all the time; I'd probably be eating burnt rice each time :P