Okay - after two years of doing raw foods, I really thought I had this licked. I've treid three times to be "raw" and this last has seemed to be the easiest... until today. Having the weekend, I thought I would uncook some brussels sprouts in my dehydrator. I made a special marinade of Nama Shoyu and garlic and tossed my fresh brussels sprouts halves in it before letting them sit for a few hours in the dehydrator. Great! Couldn't wait to dive in...
So I am, sitting here with my plate of brussels sprouts, enjoying what seemed to be an easy meal. I love these little green cabbages! After eating one or two, I look down and - what do I see??? It's a tiny gray worm twitching about on the edge of one of these sprouts I am about to pop in my mouth!
I could not believe it! These were fresh from the market and I washed them before cutting them in half. I am oddly a mix of emotions right now. I could not eat any more of them and turned the whole batch out into the garbage can. I know it's only a little worm, and I have probably eaten worse without knowing it (or worse KNOWING it, like the days of chicken McNuggets or ground beef tacos). I am very disappointed with myself, mad at the worm(s) who came between me and what I thought would be a great meal, and just freaked-out by this. I'm not even hungry any more and don't think I want to eat anything for awhile.
Has anyone else ever had something like this happen? How did you move on?
Comments
My first gross out was when I sprouted for the first time on my own. I saw the little "tails" sprouting on the sunflower seeds and threw them out because I was convinced I couldn't eat them. Anyway, I got over it by researching why there is a need to sprout before I consume and having the knowledge behind the action helped a lot. Personally, I've never had a worm looking up at me from my meal but I'm sure you can find a way rationalize why worms need to eat too and try again. Maybe soaking the brussel sprouts longer and in vinegar would get rid of the worms?
This reminds me of that old joke,
" What is worse than finding a worm in the apple you are eating?"
Answer: Finding only HALF a worm!
At least we know that dehydrating does preserve living things , if that worm survived several hours :)
Sometimes i soak leafy veggies in a bowl of water for a while, not just rinse them. Sand and dirt fall to the bottom of the bowl, and little critters can swim away. This may help if you ever go for the brussel sprouts again.
OMG, this is sooo perfect timing!
I was just about to post a question on how I should get rid of these caterpillars on the organic kale I purchase from farmers market...
While I do love kale, one biggest obstacle for me now is these small caterpillars I always see on these veges.
No matter how well I wash - and I do mean really well! - these little things are never NEVER going away!
I use organic vege wash...soak Kale in it for 30 sec and swish. Then rinse well but still it didn't work.
A friend of mine told me to use luke warm water instead of cold as these caterpillars tend to stick to these leaves more in cold water but with warm water, they get loosen, therefore easy to be washed away???? Ugh, sounds making sense but it wasn't, really! I tried this but it didn't work either, after rinsed, swished, then rinsed more and left these kale in a colander for a while, I still saw few curling up on the bottom of colander if not on the kale, eww...
I seriously spent few hours hand-washing kale piece by piece, no joke!
I'm so caterpillar-phobia, I was almost getting fainted(rather than grossed out) when I saw one...
I know it sounds silly but I just can't help it. I do understand the theory, that seeing those little worms & bugs means the vege is safe for us(and of course for these bugs) to eat but I still can't get over "the shock"...
Hi ABQNick,
Reminds me of an experience I had with some ears of corn from the farmers' market in NC... here I am, I live in Africa and have over the years got used to just cutting off and throwing away part of a piece of mango or other fruit if there's a small white worm in it, which there often is... but a few months while visiting in NC there were these big squishy caterpillars making a huge feast out of each of 3 ears of corn I was trying to get the husks off of, and I found myself screaming as I saw them twitching around in "my food". We each have our waterloo, but I think generally, you can get used to this type of thing... to some extent.
-osoniye
haha...... my gross out experience was from eating an apple, and that apple happened to have a worm in it, which I didn't notice until I bit into the apple and chewed up half of it, the other half of the worm was wiggling around still stuck in the apple and was it ever sour tasting, I spit out the whole thing...got grossed out and threw away my apple, from that experience I always cut up my apples into slices now.. so no more surprises...lol
I like reading these they make me laugh so much. Some friends and I went to a place to eat, ordered salad when it came we chatted as we chomped away,until we saw a very lively worm having,what seemed like, a bit of a dance on our friends plate. The waitress was horrified and changed all of our meals and didn't charge us for any. We never did go back there tho.
On another note, if you juice would the bugs come out with the pulp???
Adding salt er? Waterbaby1234, it sounds effective but doesn't it change a flavor of vege?
Somebody mentioned about adding vinegar into the rinsing water but how much should I add?
When I made a massaged kale last week, I had to use zip-lock to massage after all I saw these caterpillars on it while washing.
I know, I sound extremely silly but I just can not shake off that horror of "squashing" them in my hand...(aarrgghhh!).
Lo and behold! I saw something right after I started massaging - a "bright green dot" at the one edge of zip-lock.
"The dot" is distinctively brighter color than the rest of kale I was massaging...:(