# Yikes! Bugs in My pantry!



## anitaj71

I took out my sugar and flour to bake some cookies yesterday and there were tiny, light brown specks in my sugar. Upon closer inspection I saw that they were moving. I looked in my flour, bugs in there too. I started to look into everything in my pantry and they were in EVERYTHING! Even in sealed bags! I threw absolutely everything out and washed everything. Including my canned goods. But. Now what? How do I know they won't come back? Has anyone had any experience with these horrible little things? Did you use pesticide?


----------



## chamomeleon

Yep. I recently cleaned out my pantry and found some of these critters as well. This is yucky, but I believe that they get into your pantry because the larvae are already in the grain product when it comes from the processing facility. The best things you can do to prevent them are to clean clean clean your pantry, throw away all infested food, use hard plastic or glass containers for everything (they can chew through plastic bags), and store things you don't use often in the freezer.

I had to throw away a bunch of stuff (lots of it was old anyway), and I bought a case of quart-sized canning jars to store everything I kept. I don't think it's necessary (or really safe) to use any kind of pesticide. My plan is to just try to evaluate the contents of my pantry more often!


----------



## A&A

Freeze your grains (flour, etc.) for 2 or 3 days when you first purchase them.


----------



## anitaj71

Thank you for your responses. I have cleared everything out. All I have left of my pantry are the canned goods. I bought some flour, sugar and rice yesterday and they are all in the freezer for a few days before I put them in my pantry. The problem is: They were tiny. Smaller than a flax seed and light brown. Eensy weensy little things. They were even in the non food stuff. ( ziploc bags and such ) All I could think is: they are still around even though I've wiped and cleaned. What about eggs? Bug eggs that is. I'm heebie jeebied out. I'm conviced they are everywhere and I don't want to put anything back in the pantry . . .


----------



## A&A

Quote:


Originally Posted by *anitaj71* 
Thank you for your responses. I have cleared everything out. All I have left of my pantry are the canned goods. I bought some flour, sugar and rice yesterday and they are all in the freezer for a few days before I put them in my pantry. The problem is: They were tiny. Smaller than a flax seed and light brown. Eensy weensy little things. They were even in the non food stuff. ( ziploc bags and such ) All I could think is: they are still around even though I've wiped and cleaned. What about eggs? Bug eggs that is. I'm heebie jeebied out. I'm conviced they are everywhere and I don't want to put anything back in the pantry . . .

Once you've cleaned out thoroughly and put your grains in the freezer for a few days, you should be fine. (I also put mac and cheese boxes in the freezer for a few days when I first buy them because noodle products can have the same problem.) You could also buy airtight containers to put the flour, etc. in (Snaplock is one brand that works well.)

They're just weevils. My friend told me that her mom would just strain them out of the grain--no sense wasting the food! (Yuck.)


----------



## mamadelbosque

I had them (or something similar) last summer in all my grains'n what not. Now I keep everything in mason jars and haven't had an issue since







Look into getting the nice plastic lids for the mason jars - you can't can with them, but they're way nicer for keeping grains/beans/flour/sugar/etc with, since you don't hav to worry about two seperate parts


----------



## Purple Cat

That happened to me. I threw away everything and scoured with bleach. I still have the heebee jeebees of using the pantry. Five months later, I've finally baked something.


----------



## MJ13

We're dealing with a similar issue.

Ours are grain mites. (Weevils are small beetles but there is no mistaking them. I doubt it's weevils) Ours came from the dog food. We've had them for about 3 weeks and they are finally about gone.

We didn't spray any pesticides since ours were on the fridge and in the pantry. Just keep checking things. Even when we thought we got them all we would find more a couple days later.

ETA: They even got into mason jars that we were storing stuff in because they really are that small that thet just crawl right in.


----------



## ilovebabies

Yep, I freeze all my grains for this same reason.


----------



## BaBaBa

Ugh...
I haven't had those but i just had maggots in the pasta
uke


----------



## phatchristy

I have a friend who lived overseas as a missionary. They're common place where she lives, almost all of the flour/grains have them. She just freezes when she buys something right away and sifts them out.

I had to deal with it once here about 5 years ago. I had bought some pasta from an albertson's. Brought it home, and saw a bug crawling out of it nearly instantly. Not thinking much of it (thought I had got the *bug*) put it in the pantry. Then, wound up with bugs in all my flours and pastas. Sigh.

I did the same thing, froze and sifted. They are harmless and won't hurt you. But, for a LONG time after that I kept everything in vacuum sealed containers or ziplocks.


----------



## MJ13

Maybe I'm the one who is wrong and maybe the OP can let us know. But what she is describing is just like what we had.

They are SO SMALL you literally couldn't sift them out. They are the size of a speck of dust. You wouldn't even know they were alive if you weren't super observant.

Freezing is still a good idea - but these things are microscopic







: and they are nearly impossible to get rid of.


----------

