Comments on: What’s so crunchy in your snack?

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 08:33:26 +0000

Somewhat tangential:

Rats are a mixed curse. Members of my family have occasionally raised them as pets, and I can’t help myself, I find them cute. I admire their resourcefulness.

It would appear, though, that they’ve been a worse threat to humanity than any megalomaniac in memory. From a good article in the Washington Post:

Rats often came along, too, carrying fleas infected with the bacteria responsible for plague. The plague bacteria had existed for thousands of years among marmots and other rodents in central Asia, causing few problems. But when rats started hitchhiking on passing caravans, eventually reaching the Mediterranean region in the 6th century A.D., they boarded ships and initiated the Plague of Justinian, which killed an estimated 100 million people. When the plague returned in the 14th century as the Black Death, it wiped out approximately one-third of Europe’s population.

So, why did the rats decide to take these long journeys with us? Just to accompany our provisions?

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 20:59:53 +0000

It shouldn’t really be all that surprising that rats exist in warehouse environs. And its not like the food was in the open air – they were probably packaged up in cartons. Not that this is a good thing – but its probably not as bad as they’re making it sound.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 19:11:35 +0000

Rat droppings are counted using one of those pre-modern number systems that run, “one, two, three, more than a thousand….”

By: joejoejoe

joejoejoe — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 18:15:41 +0000

Fun facts from AgResearch food safety scientist Guill Le Roux and the USDA…

Rodent hairs are allowed at the rate of up to one in every 100g of peanut butter, one in every 450g of popcorn or 4.5 hairs in every 225g of macaroni or noodles.

Wheat can contain up to 9mg of rodent droppings in every 450g of grain.

“Rats get into grain silos and get processed during milling, and rat droppings get into the grain. You just can’t prevent it,” Mr Le Roux said.

“Get processed” sounds like a euphimism for ground up rat. More from the wonderful Mr. Le Roux…

Mr Le Roux blamed the media for “distorting” the dangers by giving huge attention to GM and toxic substances in food. Toxins accounted for 32 per cent of news stories about food safety in the US, but caused only 3 per cent of deaths.

He said all human beings ate “transgenic” food from other species every day, unless they were cannibals.

“There are other hazards that are more of a problem than the minor issues associated with foreign genes. I mean, people eat rats. If you put rat genes in a potato, well, people eat both of them.”

Yikes! I’ve heard of Potatoes Au Gratin, but not Potatoes Au Ratgene. Maybe you should consider flying out of Midway, Eszter.