pantry pests in Pinto Beans

[Homesteader]

So if I read your OP right. You had your beans SEALED in MYLAR BAGS. You opened the seal and you saw the months ALIVE.

You had used dry ice when you initially sealed the bags? Is that correct? Did you use oxygen absorbers? Were the bags heat sealed? or did you just roll them shut? Did the bags have any holes in them.

I'm trying to figure out how the months got into a sealed mylar bag and lived, multiplied if you used an oxygen absorber and dried ice. I had an infestation of moths in some rice once. I did an experiment and vacuumed sealed the jar and the moths died. So I know they can be killed in a confined area.

I've got a lot of food in mylar bags, so I appreciate your answer so I know how close an eye I need to keep on them.

[PyratePrincess]

I'm not prone to out gross out over eating a few bugs. I love escargot and crawfish...though I'm not sure how hungry the first person that decided to ingest them were!

My mom was a depression child. Her thing was buying cereal on sale-but no real idea how to store it. My raisin bran always came with a few more "raisins"

[Oscar Wilde]

Take the beans outdoors and pour them out on a bed sheet .... the critters that can fly will .... the rest will separate during the dump and as you scoop the beans up and dump them in the container .... like separating the wheat from the chaff .... and then into the freezer they go .... the beans.

O.W.

[packyderms_wife]

I can tell you how to get the bugs out, but you'd have to cook them right away (or can them). One bit of advice, do not open them in your house again. They will get out and infest everything in your house and I'm not joking. I lost over 500 lbs of grain foods from doing that - flour, meal, crackers, noodles, all sorts of things.

To get the bugs out, pour them into a colander outside, shake it well to get out as many bugs as possible, then dump the beans into a pot of water. Do this for all of them. Then start scooping out any bugs that float to the top of the water. Keep doing that until you no longer find bugs. Now soak them overnight and scoop any additional bugs that float up. Now drain the beans, rinse them, and either can or cook them. If you cook them, you don't have to eat them all right now, you can freeze them in meal-size portions.

I know that sounds gross, but, if it comes down to getting the bugs out of something or going hungry, I'm getting the bugs out. Might as well learn how now.

As far as preventing bugs in foods, the only sure-fire way I know of is to store them in the freezer all the time.

I know I didn't offer much hope, but that's all I've got.

We had a screen for sifting beans and another one for rice when I was a kid. Maybe folks should consider this as part of their preps? We used a sifter for flour.

K-

[PyratePrincess]

So if I read your OP right. You had your beans SEALED in MYLAR BAGS. You opened the seal and you saw the months ALIVE.

You had used dry ice when you initially sealed the bags? Is that correct? Did you use oxygen absorbers? Were the bags heat sealed? or did you just roll them shut? Did the bags have any holes in them.

I'm trying to figure out how the months got into a sealed mylar bag and lived, multiplied if you used an oxygen absorber and dried ice. I had an infestation of moths in some rice once. I did an experiment and vacuumed sealed the jar and the moths died. So I know they can be killed in a confined area.

I've got a lot of food in mylar bags, so I appreciate your answer so I know how close an eye I need to keep on them.

Thank you for your questions-I think these are all skills we're going to need to learn if we didn't grow up around people who passed the knowledge down (I didn't).

I think I've determined the weak link in the chain. 5 gal bucket with a gamma seal, which from my own use, makes opening the lids MUCH easier..but is NOT a true barrier shield. (Reinforced that tonight while I was having to "burp" the other buckets-but NOT the gamma seal lids.

There was a "ziplock" type Mylar bag which was NOT completely sealed-and there was the original plastic bag the beans were sealed in (roughly 1 year ago) which WAS sealed. No dry ice originally used-but 02 absorbers were.

I found no signs of infestation in any of the other buckets.

[packyderms_wife]

Thank you for your questions-I think these are all skills we're going to need to learn if we didn't grow up around people who passed the knowledge down (I didn't).

I think I've determined the weak link in the chain. 5 gal bucket with a gamma seal, which from my own use, makes opening the lids MUCH easier..but is NOT a true barrier shield. (Reinforced that tonight while I was having to "burp" the other buckets-but NOT the gamma seal lids.

There was a "ziplock" type Mylar bag which was NOT completely sealed-and there was the original plastic bag the beans were sealed in (roughly 1 year ago) which WAS sealed. No dry ice originally used-but 02 absorbers were.

I found no signs of infestation in any of the other buckets.

Simple Solution to Bugs

No Oxygen equals NO BUGS.

K-

[PyratePrincess]

Simple Solution to Bugs

No Oxygen equals NO BUGS.

K-

That's why I kinda went nuclear on the dry ice this evening...but Belle's response still has me troubled.

In going through my "food room" I was happy that it still appeared clean as a whistle (no spiders, dust bunnies, etc)...except for that one pail. so...If I'm basically flushing nitrogen through them for several hours...how can they survive? Seems like a round of straining the beans at this point would be all you'd really need to do.

But I don't know-

[packyderms_wife]

That's why I kinda went nuclear on the dry ice this evening...but Belle's response still has me troubled.

In going through my "food room" I was happy that it still appeared clean as a whistle (no spiders, dust bunnies, etc)...except for that one pail. so...If I'm basically flushing nitrogen through them for several hours...how can they survive? Seems like a round of straining the beans at this point would be all you'd really need to do.

But I don't know-

If the packets have O2 absorbers then your fine... if in doubt stick them out in the freezing weather. I try to freeze everything before packing in mylar with 02 absorbers... this seems to help tremendously.

OH and the cycle is freeze for 3 days thaw for 10 days freeze for 3 days and thaw for 10 days and freeze again to ENSURE the death of the winged critters.

[Homesteader]

Thank you for your questions-I think these are all skills we're going to need to learn if we didn't grow up around people who passed the knowledge down (I didn't).

I think I've determined the weak link in the chain. 5 gal bucket with a gamma seal, which from my own use, makes opening the lids MUCH easier..but is NOT a true barrier shield. (Reinforced that tonight while I was having to "burp" the other buckets-but NOT the gamma seal lids.

There was a "ziplock" type Mylar bag which was NOT completely sealed-and there was the original plastic bag the beans were sealed in (roughly 1 year ago) which WAS sealed. No dry ice originally used-but 02 absorbers were.

I found no signs of infestation in any of the other buckets.

Thanks for the answer. My mylar bags are heat sealed with oxygen absorbers so they should be okay unless they get a hole or something. I was starting to wonder if I should dig them out and inspect them. But it sounds like I should be okay.

Luckily, you had your grain in buckets so you could isolate the infestation. Hope you got them all.

[luvmyvet]

another thing we do after having had moth infestations in our regular food was to hang those fly strips up as an early warning system, at the first sign of the miller moths I could start looking for the source.
One of the main places we found them everytime was in cardboard packaging, cereal boxes, oatmeal, crackers, etc, those suckers seem to love cardboard.

I started thinking they (chinamart) were doing it on purpose, just so food had to get thrown out and new stuff bought.
Now anything and everything possible goes into the freezer before coming into the house, we haven't had any more problems with the pests for past few years, oh and I use a dusting of DE on my pantry shelves and cupboards too.
It sounds like you caught it early and they weren't able to spread, thats good news!
LMV