Today we started to grind some wheat into flour when we noticed lots of grubby looking bugs in the wheat. We buy the wheat by the 50 lb. bag and have never had problems before.

Anyway, what do we do with the wheat? Can it be ridden of the bugs so we can still use it? I hate to see all this wheat go to waste.

-- sevensmiths (sevensmiths@netzero.net), October 13, 2000

Answers

If you have chickens, they love it. I was just give alot of wheat in that condition and it is being used for chicken feed. I suggest that you check the rest of the wheat. If it is insect free, you should repackage it, taking proper precautions so that this doesn't happen again. Most of the products we buy off the shelve that contain flour, will get weavils. Pasta etc. You can place these items, including wheat and flour, in the freezer for a few months to kill any possible weavils. Our ancestors invented the sifter to handle the problem. I just give the wheat to the hens and let them convert it to eggs. Once, I bought a large amount of oatmeal and carefully stored it, except for the small amount in the bottom of the bag which I used first. One morning, I was feeding my 1 yr old and noticed that there was a weavil in the bowl. Grossed me out, didn't bother him a bit. I threw the remainder away and watched him for illness, he stayed quite healthy and this is the first time I have ever admitted it.

-- Cheryl Cox (bramblecottage@hotmail.com), October 13, 2000.

OK, this might gross out some people, but, face it, do you really think that the commercial baking companies care if there are little bugs in their flour? The government has food guidelines that state that a certain amount of foreign material is allowed in their food products legally! This includes bugs of course. The amount of "stuff" allowed in peanut butter is amazing, and also for bread/ bakery items, realize that the foreign material is allowed in the product BEFORE baking or processing so it's dead and sterile. Realize that whatever you would use to treat your wheat that would kill bugs will usually not be good for you. You can, however freeze the wheat, that would kill the bugs and maybe the larvae, and you could try adding quite a few whole bay leaves to the wheat when you first purchase it, and stir them in well. You do know that the bugs were there from when the wheat was harvested, they are just now hatching out, no way to prevent that, organic or not. I personally co- exist with the bugs, pick out the obvious large bugs/larvae, and take comfort that they all will be ground up and be dead upon baking. They will not hurt you or spread disease in any way. Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), October 13, 2000.

I'm a bit like you. The thought of bugs in my food is gross. I have been grinding wheat that we stored a year ago and haven't found any weevils in it. We take it out of the sacks and store it in 5-6 gallon plastic buckets. We sprinkle diatamacious earth into the wheat in layers as we put it in the buckets then roll the buckets around good to coat it thoroughly. When you are ready to use the wheat rinse briefly and spread out to dry in warm place. Make sure you get the DE that is for food. By the way a little DE won't hurt you but you should be careful not to breath any of the dust. I read somewhere that you can put the wheat in a single layer and put it in the oven on about 300 for 15 mins and it will kill the bugs. Not sure how you are supposed to get the bugs out after they are dead though. Amanda

-- Amanda Seley (aseley@townsqr.com), October 13, 2000.

I asked the lady at one of the local y2k meetings one time, "What do you do with flour with bugs? Can the bugs make you sick?" She said that you can pick out the bugs (sounds tedious to me), grind the grain, and make it into goods for your family. Then she said, "If things REALLY got bad, you counld do what people in the past did--eat it, bugs and all. You couldn't afford to waste the protein." Things would have to get REALLY bad. I have read where the worms and weevils in hardtack bread ("sea bisquits") after long ocean voyages were considered to be good remedies and protection against scurvy. EUWWWWWWW.

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), October 13, 2000.

Since humans are one of only a handful of earth's creature who don't produce their own vitamin C, protection from scurvy might be right - presumably bugs need it and presumably they make it themselves, like most other animals do, so theoretically wormy biscuits could protect the sailors. EUUWWW? Maybe, maybe not. Most "bug eater" books say that grubs of all sorts (edible, anyways) tend to be nutty in flavor and not icky at all. Not as if I'll be trying it out anytime soon, but things get bad and who knows...maybe I'll finally get revenge on the 'hoppers for what they did to my garden this year!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), October 13, 2000.

This is about rice, not wheat, but the bugs that infest it are probably the same or similar. My husband is Persian, so we eat a LOT of rice -Indian Basmati, which is aged, and has therefore been around a while. If it's also been around the house a while (a month or more) you're bound to see bugs, by which time they're adults with wings, from grayish to very dark.

Anyway, Basmati rice needs to be rinsed thoroughly to remove the starch, but this also magically removes the bugs. You swish the rice around in a bowl of water and they float to the top, and then you can pour them off. You do this until they're gone, usually once or twice. The cooked rice is exactly the same as if there had been no bugs.

So, I just thought I'd mention that because if the grubs really gross you out, you could wait until they mature into floatable adults and rinse them away. I have no idea how this would affect the wheat's ability to be ground into flour, though. (Hope I didn't give anyone a disgust of basmati rice -it's really the greatest stuff, and I've never had any cooked that wasn't "clean")

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), October 13, 2000.