Weird and Gross FDA Allowances

Do you really know what’s in your food? I bet you don’t!

The FDA is usually pretty good at cracking down on weird things in our food, though they’ve certainly slipped up now and again. But did you know that they actually allow some pretty weird and gross things to remain in our food?

See, the problem is that there are always going to be tiny or even microscopic particles dropped into food products during manufacturing, so there’s really no way to ensure that the food is 100% free of gross things. As long as the food passes muster, it’s allowed to be shipped.

Here are some of the grossest, weirdest allowances made by the FDA for your food:

1. Broccoli — Did you know that each package of frozen broccoli is home to aphids and mites? The FDA allows for up to 60 mites and/or aphids for every 100 grams of frozen broccoli, adding a bit of extra protein to your crunchy greens.
2. Chocolate –– No! They can’t allow our precious chocolate to be contaminated! Sadly, chocolate isn’t as tasty as you might think, not when you realize that every 100 grams of chocolate contains at least three rodent hairs, sometimes more.
3. Oregano –– It’s not just herbs and spices you’re sprinkling into your food, but there’s a bit of insect as well. Your oregano can still be shipped even if it contains up to 1,250 fragments of insects in every 10 grams of the herb.
4. Strawberries –– Before you sink your teeth into that strawberry pie, think about what’s in them. In every package of frozen strawberries, the FDA allows a mold count as high as 45%. That means you could very likely be eating moldy berries, but the highly processed flavoring means you’ll never taste it!
5. Popcorn –– Sit back on your couch and get ready for some microwaved rodent pellets. The FDA allows samples even if they contain a pellet of rodent excrement, which means you may be getting a bit more flavoring than you’d like.

READ MORE: Unhealthy Food Ingredients

6. Fish –– In roughly 3% of the red fish and ocean perch you eat, you’ll find there are little tiny things called copepods living in your fish. Those copepods usually contain sacs of pus, which are small enough that you’ll never taste.  Just knowing they’re there, however, means you may take fish off the menu.
7. Mushrooms –– Did you know that each can of mushrooms is loaded with some pretty gross stuff? There are roughly 20 grams of maggots in every 100 grams of canned mushroom, which means that 1/5^th of what you’re eating is maggot.
8. Raisins –– You’re not just putting dried grapes into your breakfast oatmeal, but you’re adding something more. Every 8 ounces of raisins can contain the equivalent of 10 insects, as well as 35 fruit fly eggs. You don’t even want to see what happens when these foods hit your digestive tract!
9. Apples –– The apples you buy from the store may be fairly free of mold, but the applesauce, apple butter, and other apple products are not. The FDA allows for a mold count of no more than 12%, but that’s still a lot more mold than you’d like in your apple pie!
10. Peanut Butter –– They should start adding a flavor called “Hairy” to their lines of “Chunky” and “Creamy” peanut butter products. The FDA allows up to 1 rodent hair per 100 grams of the creamy stuff, meaning there’s a lot more rat in your peanut butter than you might like.

I have only one thing to say here: EWWWW!