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Fresh, Hot Cup of Cockroaches
Listeners nationwide spat out a mouthful of coffee this morning when NPR’s Fresh Air featured an entomologist who informed us that preground coffee is full of cockroaches.
It seems Douglas Emlen, a biology professor at the University of Montana, was doing a research trip with an older entomologist who was obsessed with good coffee, and who kept making deviations from the trip route to get it. In the pre-Starbucks ’80s, Emlen says, it was hard to find whole coffee beans, and the entomologist would sometimes go 45 minutes out of his way to find it. Why? As the entomologist finally explained, he had to drink only freshly ground coffee, because he had a serious allergy to cockroach.
“Preground—you know, your big bulk coffee that you buy in a tin—is all processed from these huge stockpiles of coffee … that get infested with cockroaches,” says Emlen. “And there’s really nothing they can do to filter that out. So it all gets ground up in the coffee.”
Of course, we all sorta knew this. Who hasn’t seen the lists of percentages of insect parts allowed by the FDA? And who hasn’t then willfully forgotten it because he wants to go on eating hot dogs?
Well, here’s something else to chew on: Chocolate, like coffee, is constructed from “huge piles of … cocoa beans, all piled up, that then gets ground up into something we all love and eat,” says Emlen happily.
Listen if you dare. The gory stories start at about 34:50.
Posted by | Monday, May 4, 2009 at 4:18pm | 11 comments
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Yes, I tuned in to NPR on my way home from work yesterday, and I can't look at my jar of coffee this morning ... I heated up some water for hot chocolate, though. For some reason I just can't believe chocolate is contaminated.
Why haven't we heard of this before?
Ho true is this?
I am in shock!
I won't be able to drink coffee or eat chocolate....at least for some time.
I am going to googleland right now.
It should read:
How true is this?
I am in shock!
I won't be able to drink coffee or eat chocolate....at least for some time.
I am going to googleland right now.
*shrugs*... Doesn't bother me at all. Do we forget that our food comes from nature, which is loaded with critters both big and small? It's inevitable that some of them or their waste is going to end up in our food, and I doubt it's possible to remove that. Hell, our distant ancestors probably had a diet that consisted to a degree of insects, and they're still eaten in many cultures today.
This is not exactly current news. I heard this long ago, probably 20 years ago.
And, it is one of the reasons I buy coffee beans and grind them myself (the other reason is that the coffee tastes so MUCH better).
Of course, I am also into grinding my own meat, scrubbing my fruits and vegetables in a mild bleach solution before eating. And, as many of my numerous critics know --- my wife and I will NOT eat in a restaurant unless necessitated by travel or business.
Maybe that's why I am 67 years old and can't remember the last time I had so much as the sniffles --- LOL!
Happy roaches (and GAWD knows what else) folks!
@vorpal: Excellent post! Common sense rules!
I wouldn't be surprised if micro batch chocolates didn't have that problem.
Ok, but WHY does this sound gross? Because we instinctively know not to eat anything crawling with bugs... because anything crawling with bugs is bad for us because it's decomposing. But ground-up bugs are harmless and MAY even provide a dash of protein WITHOUT the fat that is inseparable from the protein we USUALLY eat. One of the greatest crimes of modern media is the use of 1/2 truths to gain readers
If it tastes good and doesn't kill me, who cares?
I've been in a large commercial coffee roasting facility and from what I've witnessed, it would be virtually impossible for roaches to infest coffee in this way.
Once the coffee leaves the roasting machine, it is transferred via enclosed pipes to the grinder, where it is ground up and put into large bags to "de-gas." After degassing, it is then packaged.
At what point between the roaster and the grinder are the roaches supposed to infest the coffee?
This story simply isn't true.
Sorry, Beto pan - it is not between the roaster and the grinder that the infestation by cockroaches takes place, but while the beans are piled up in the warehouse, waiting to be roasted - as the original NPR story makes clear.
Small batch, i.e. free trade coffee has much less cockroach debris in it. As I am extremely allergic to cockroaches, like the scientist in the NPR story, I, too grind my own beans. If you're not allergic to cockroaches, you've nothing to worry about.