Beware Of Italian Pasta!

[kevdulounge]

hey,

I wanted to warn you about something that happened to my GF and I.

we eat pasta about twice a week (penne, spaggettis etc). I buy them a Gourmet Market Emporium, Carrefour Rama IV or Villa Market Soi 49.

Anyways, the other day I head my girlfiried sream in the kitchen while she was boiling water :

As she put the penne in the water, thousands of very small insects escaped from the pastas, into the boiling water.

They looked like very very small cockroaches, I don't know.

It was a 500g box of Agnessi spaggettis we bought at carrefour about a week prior to that.

Anyways, we thought maybe the pack was not closed well, and the bugs came from our place (very unlikly, I' havent never seen an insect in my condo in a year).

Yesterday we went to carrefour rama IV again for the montly food supply. Out of curiosity i looked throught the transparent packaging of AGNESI pastas, and what was my surprise when I noticed bugs inside at leat 3 or 4 packs! Then I looked at San Remo brand pastas: SAME! bugs in some packs... We then looked at Barilla and Delato (or delcato), and they seemed safe...

So my advice is: think again when buying pastas from Carrefour... I haven't checked if it was the same at villamarket or gourmet.

a couple of bugs in the packaging will make a housand of them in a week or two...

[FarangNoi21]

ewwww

[toptuan]

You're definitely not a <<Kohn Isaan>>. They would be delighted at the extra protein.

What? You threw them out of your hot water?? Tsk, tsk.

Edited September 23, 2007 by toptuan

[lazeeboy]

ewwww

same thing happened to me ,bought some pasta from tops and had what looked like fleas in the pasta ,infested the cupboard ,took it back to tops and was told 'IMPOSSIBLE" went to get another packet hoping to prove it and where it was ,said out of stock .

[doctormann]

hey,

I wanted to warn you about something that happened to my GF and I.

we eat pasta about twice a week (penne, spaggettis etc). I buy them a Gourmet Market Emporium, Carrefour Rama IV or Villa Market Soi 49.

Anyways, the other day I head my girlfiried sream in the kitchen while she was boiling water :

As she put the penne in the water, thousands of very small insects escaped from the pastas, into the boiling water.

They looked like very very small cockroaches, I don't know.

It was a 500g box of Agnessi spaggettis we bought at carrefour about a week prior to that.

Anyways, we thought maybe the pack was not closed well, and the bugs came from our place (very unlikly, I' havent never seen an insect in my condo in a year).

Yesterday we went to carrefour rama IV again for the montly food supply. Out of curiosity i looked throught the transparent packaging of AGNESI pastas, and what was my surprise when I noticed bugs inside at leat 3 or 4 packs! Then I looked at San Remo brand pastas: SAME! bugs in some packs... We then looked at Barilla and Delato (or delcato), and they seemed safe...

So my advice is: think again when buying pastas from Carrefour... I haven't checked if it was the same at villamarket or gourmet.

a couple of bugs in the packaging will make a housand of them in a week or two...

I had a similar experience a while ago with a packet of that multi-coloured pasta that we had had in the cupboard for a couple of weeks. I think that the little insects are called weevils - just thinking back historically when these used to be a big problem in 'ship's biscuits' on long sea voyages. Probably nothing to do with where you bought the pasta as the weevil eggs would have been in the flour used to make the pasta, so more likely to be a problem with the manufacturing process. I suppose though that the longer the pasta is stored the more the bugs may hatch out. Not a very nice thing to see, really.

DM

[lazeeboy]

hey,

I wanted to warn you about something that happened to my GF and I.

we eat pasta about twice a week (penne, spaggettis etc). I buy them a Gourmet Market Emporium, Carrefour Rama IV or Villa Market Soi 49.

Anyways, the other day I head my girlfiried sream in the kitchen while she was boiling water :

As she put the penne in the water, thousands of very small insects escaped from the pastas, into the boiling water.

They looked like very very small cockroaches, I don't know.

It was a 500g box of Agnessi spaggettis we bought at carrefour about a week prior to that.

Anyways, we thought maybe the pack was not closed well, and the bugs came from our place (very unlikly, I' havent never seen an insect in my condo in a year).

Yesterday we went to carrefour rama IV again for the montly food supply. Out of curiosity i looked throught the transparent packaging of AGNESI pastas, and what was my surprise when I noticed bugs inside at leat 3 or 4 packs! Then I looked at San Remo brand pastas: SAME! bugs in some packs... We then looked at Barilla and Delato (or delcato), and they seemed safe...

So my advice is: think again when buying pastas from Carrefour... I haven't checked if it was the same at villamarket or gourmet.

a couple of bugs in the packaging will make a housand of them in a week or two...

I had a similar experience a while ago with a packet of that multi-coloured pasta that we had had in the cupboard for a couple of weeks. I think that the little insects are called weevils - just thinking back historically when these used to be a big problem in 'ship's biscuits' on long sea voyages. Probably nothing to do with where you bought the pasta as the weevil eggs would have been in the flour used to make the pasta, so more likely to be a problem with the manufacturing process. I suppose though that the longer the pasta is stored the more the bugs may hatch out. Not a very nice thing to see, really.

DM

mine were black ,had to take the wall unit down and spray it with coronum.........

[JimmieBlonde]

I had the same problem with lasagna pasta sheets from Villa, took them back, they wanted to give me the baht back, however I went and swapped for a new pack, opened it in front of the, same problem, I kept opening till I found a sheet. If I hadn;t I am sure they would have not done a thing as I have seen in the past (a)

[Mid]

Weevil

wikimedia.org

[Sarge]

what you saw were weevils, a bug that infests wheat products, they're commonly found in tropical countries. You should question Carrefour's food storing practices, betcha they keep food in humid, dirty environment. Btw Sanremo is sh*te pasta produced in Adelaide, Australia, hard to believe but true

Edited September 23, 2007 by Sarge

[kevdulounge]

yeah, might be these weevil things we saw... it's hard to tell it was so small. very black also. I've never had this problem before in europe or australia... but again maybe they dont store the products for as long as they do here. From now on we'll only buy from Barilla or Delcato (###### they're twice the price!) as I've never seen anything living in their packages...

[helitool]

This occures with most food products that are made from grains. Flour and breakfast cereals in prticular. It most often happens when the shelf life of the product is exceded giving the insect eegs time to hatch. Check the sell by dates to make sure that the product has not been sitting on the store shelf for many months.

[Jockstar]

Same thing happened to me a couple of years back. I bought some lasagne from Carrefour Lad Prao. A couple of days later when i went to make lasagne. I opened up the package and inside some of the pasta was mouldy and had insects all over it. So since i lived just accross the road from Carrefour , me and the wife went over to show them. We also wanted to replace it. But we opened other packets to check. All of them were infested or had at least a couple of bugs. So we ended up not getting anymore lasagne but got a nice pack of pasta instead. I couldnt look at lasagne for a long time after that.

[meemiathai]

hey,

I wanted to warn you about something that happened to my GF and I.

we eat pasta about twice a week (penne, spaggettis etc). I buy them a Gourmet Market Emporium, Carrefour Rama IV or Villa Market Soi 49.

Anyways, the other day I head my girlfiried sream in the kitchen while she was boiling water :

As she put the penne in the water, thousands of very small insects escaped from the pastas, into the boiling water.

They looked like very very small cockroaches, I don't know.

It was a 500g box of Agnessi spaggettis we bought at carrefour about a week prior to that.

Anyways, we thought maybe the pack was not closed well, and the bugs came from our place (very unlikly, I' havent never seen an insect in my condo in a year).

Yesterday we went to carrefour rama IV again for the montly food supply. Out of curiosity i looked throught the transparent packaging of AGNESI pastas, and what was my surprise when I noticed bugs inside at leat 3 or 4 packs! Then I looked at San Remo brand pastas: SAME! bugs in some packs... We then looked at Barilla and Delato (or delcato), and they seemed safe...

So my advice is: think again when buying pastas from Carrefour... I haven't checked if it was the same at villamarket or gourmet.

a couple of bugs in the packaging will make a housand of them in a week or two...

It is Italian Pasta but Thai style. Nothing special. Have you never eaten bugs?

[meemiathai]

This is very common with rice here in HK. I can't believe that your girlfriend have actually screamed if she was Thai.

[tutsiwarrior]

opened a packet of sesame Ry-Vita yesterday bought from a supermarket in Jeddah and a load of weevils came out...just tapped them out and went ahead and spread my cottage cheese and scarfed...weevils ain't like cockroaches as the eggs are involved and, bein' inside the package, ain't got the opportunity to scurry about and get their paws dirty...

weevils phobia is a western thing...bon appetit

[tijnebijn]

Tjeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I should check it from now on .

Thanks OP for the warning !

[Pushit]

Weevil

wikimedia.org

Always put your rice/pasta/vegies etc out in the subnshine and after a half hour all the bugs are gone. Works for bedding, furniture etc.

[WaiWai]

This is very common with rice here in HK.

Had the same experience with the rice here. You can try washing them out, but it's hard to get rid of all of them. I believe they're harmless if well cooked.

Buy the rice in the tightly sealed packs; I expect they can't live without air.

For pasta, try the freshly-made Thai/Japanese/Chinese noodles (from the freezer section where tofu, yoghurt etc are).

Edited September 23, 2007 by WaiWai

[tijnebijn]

aroi heh

[kevdulounge]

This is very common with rice here in HK. I can't believe that your girlfriend have actually screamed if she was Thai.

Nope she's french, and she doesn't eat bugs.. neither do I, for that matter. I'm sure it's delicious tho.. But I can't think of any recipe including bugs AND pasta..

[WaiWai]

This is very common with rice here in HK. I can't believe that your girlfriend have actually screamed if she was Thai.

Nope she's french, and she doesn't eat bugs.. neither do I, for that matter. I'm sure it's delicious tho.. But I can't think of any recipe including bugs AND pasta..

You might find something suitable at uglyfood(dot)com .

[LinkPopularity]

lol !

you just got to love the tropical life ... never boring

just put some pesto over it and some tomatoes, very nice and healthy ;-)

in fact, I find those weevils rather cute ...

[kevdulounge]

lol !

you just got to love the tropical life ... never boring

just put some pesto over it and some tomatoes, very nice and healthy ;-)

in fact, I find those weevils rather cute ...

yeah, they kinda look like a insectish form of Ibis, acording to pushit's pic... cute.

[rak sa_ngop]

I am rather surprised that importers of Italian pasta haven't explained to the Italian food manufacturers that the stiff plastic bags they use for their pasta split very easily in transit and consequently a lot of their product gets contaminated with weevils or otherwise spoiled. I have been checking pasta bags and rice bags in my shopping for a few years now especially after my last embarrassing trots experience from weevily pasta.

[Ave]

opened a packet of sesame Ry-Vita yesterday bought from a supermarket in Jeddah and a load of weevils came out...just tapped them out and went ahead and spread my cottage cheese and scarfed...weevils ain't like cockroaches as the eggs are involved and, bein' inside the package, ain't got the opportunity to scurry about and get their paws dirty...

weevils phobia is a western thing...bon appetit

esattamente! if that happened to me I would simply go to customer services with the pack of weevil deevil infested pasta and tell them that this is happening to a lotta people and that they shoulda store all the pasta in a big cantina..capisci? ciao

[kevdulounge]

I am rather surprised that importers of Italian pasta haven't explained to the Italian food manufacturers that the stiff plastic bags they use for their pasta split very easily in transit and consequently a lot of their product gets contaminated with weevils or otherwise spoiled. I have been checking pasta bags and rice bags in my shopping for a few years now especially after my last embarrassing trots experience from weevily pasta.

Barilla use thick hard carton and plastic boxes.. I guess they are safer... I'm buying those now. Worth the extra bahts i guess

[fletchsmile]

....

about twice a week (penne, spaggettis etc). I buy them a Gourmet Market Emporium, Carrefour Rama IV or Villa Market Soi 49.

Anyways, the other day I head my girlfiried sream in the kitchen while she was boiling water :

As she put the penne in the water, thousands of very small insects escaped from the pastas, into the boiling water.

....

This occures with most food products that are made from grains. Flour and breakfast cereals in prticular. It most often happens when the shelf life of the product is exceded giving the insect eegs time to hatch. Check the sell by dates to make sure that the product has not been sitting on the store shelf for many months.

Have had similar experiences. While not pleasant I wasn't too worried. Your call you throw the pasta away or eat the extra protein. Personally my diet isn't deficient in protein so I'd go for the former. Eating the heavily deep fried insects off the street is different, as you're expecting it...

Then I read Helitool's post and its implications. That suggests that the eggs are frequently present and just go unnoticed. I'll be boiling my noodles and pasta a little longer in future, and will think twice about just adding hot water, or eating them dry as a snack...

[meemiathai]

So you like boiled eggs better than semi boiled ones.

What about scrambled eggs?

[fletchsmile]

So you like boiled eggs better than semi boiled ones.

What about scrambled eggs?

Happy with the variety - as long as they don't hatch inside me...

[JR Texas]

So you like boiled eggs better than semi boiled ones.

What about scrambled eggs?

Happy with the variety - as long as they don't hatch inside me...

Evil is the Weevil........yes it is. Weevil crap and eggs........does not sound good. But did not know about putting the stuff in the hot sun to get rid of them....they crawl away but the evil weevil crap and eggs stay behind. Guess if you wash it the bad stuff floats to the top (like ants).

I bought a package of cornmeal at Foodland and put it in the refrigerator to try to keep it fresh. Then one day I opened the fridge and saw the bugs inside the package. Tossed all of it. Told the manager but he did not seem too concerned.

We are probably all eating lots of critters we can't see.