(OhJeeez) writes:

>From: (OhJeeez)
>Newsgroups: rec.food.baking
>Date: 17 Nov 2003 20:26:38 GMT
>Subject: preventing weavils
>
>WHOAH! weavils? new to baking - and new to florida - this one caught my
>attention. first, to the dictionary:
.. . .
>weevil ...
>Any one of numerous species of snout beetles, or Rhynchophora, in
>which the head is elongated and usually curved downward. Many of the species
>are very injurious to cultivated plants. The larv[ae] of some of the species
>live in nuts, fruit, and grain by eating out the interior, as the plum weevil,
>or curculio, the nut weevils, and the grain weevil
....
>THERE'S LIVESTOCK IN GROCERY FLOUR?! Killed by freezing or not, won't we still
>be eating organic dead stuff? I was going to buy unground whole grain and
>start from there. What will I find THERE?


Sorry to break the news. Commercially milled flour is extremely clean but it
it isn't perfectly clean. There are standards which hold contamination to a
miniscule but measurable level. Quoting from one government standard:

5.3 Filth test. All tests required to determine compliance with
the provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in
regard to insects, insect fragments, rodent hairs, rodent excreta,
and other filth shall be made in accordance with the Official
Methods of Analysis of the AOAC International or the Approved
Methods of the American Association of Cereal Chemists.


Here's an interesting discusion which, if your squeamish, you probably
don't want to read:

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/misc/rathairs.html

There is a saying in the computer reliability biz that
the number of rat hairs per bushel of wheat isn't ZERO.
This is intended to be a rather graphic way of explaining
that almost nothing is really perfect, and that small
defects exist almost everywhere.

CAUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you like eating bread you
might not want to read this.


A great deal of effort goes into measuring the amount of extraneous
material contained in flour so that it can be kept to a level which
is neither biologically nor aesthetically harmful. Here is a detailed
description of the analytical techniques specified by the government
of Canada (in Adobe PDF format). Pardon the long URL:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/food-aliment/...ume_4/pdf/e_ex
flp19.pdf

This method is applicable to the sampling and examination
of white wheat flour for insects, rodent hairs and other
extraneous material to determine compliance with Sections
4, 5 and 7 of the Food and Drugs Act.


On a much more pleasant level, here is a nice little essay by Roger
B. Swain, the science editor of Horticulture magazine and the host
of "The Victory Garden" on PBS television.

http://www.soils.wisc.edu/soils/poets/swain.htm

... we might as well invoke the old American proverb, "You
have to eat a peck" -- or pint or bushel -- "of dirt before
you die." It refers, of course, to eating one's words and
other such embarrassments. But it serves just as well at
mealtime.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wash my hands thoroughly and
sift my flour just one more time...

Cheers,
The Old Bear