If you are easily grossed out, then prepare yourself to gag. Seasoning your food with spices is pretty much the way it is done in kitchens throughout the world, but it appears that you could be inadvertently adding some disgusting-ness to your food when you season it. A new Food and Drug Administration report, "Pathogens and Filth in Spices" found that 12 percent of U.S. spice imports contain bug bits, rodent hair, and other things you'd probably rather not eat. I told you, GROSS!!!
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Most spices can't be grown in the U.S., so they have to be imported, which means they pass through lots of hands before getting to your kitchen. The contamination seems to happen because of poor storage practices along the way.
Thankfully, the study also found that a only a very small percentage of the American public has gotten sick from spices. Reasons for that could be that it is underreported because most people don't think to include spices in the list of what they've eaten recently; the amount of spices that we ingest is so small that it's not enough to get us sick; or many of the samples taken by the FDA where of spices that have not gone through the "microbial reduction process" that helps get rid of all the nasty bits mentioned before the spices make it into our kitchens.
The FDA has increased its inspection of spice facilities and plans to increase spice safety. I hope so because I really don't want to hear myself say, "Honey, would you like some fresh ground rat tail on your salad?"
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