If you decide to bake pancakes and find white worms in a bag with flour, you, of course, will not hesitate to throw the whole bag into the bin. And this behavior will be correct, but only by half, because with a high degree of probability the flour worm managed to hit the rest of the products in the kitchen, and you will have to try a lot to get it out.
You will need
- - detergent;
- - water;
- - vinegar.
Instruction manual
1
As the name implies, flour worms usually start in flour, but not necessarily only in it. Any products of cereal origin - bran, cereals, starch, etc. can be affected. These worms are not full-fledged worms in a biological sense, but just the larvae of the so-called flour beetle - a black insect with a size of 10 to 18 mm, spread almost throughout the world. Its larvae can reach sizes up to 4 cm, starch is necessary for their nutrition, which explains the love of this species of insects for cereals and their derivatives. Flour worms appear in the light from eggs laid by the female beetle in fairly large quantities. The small size of the eggs - from 1 to 2 mm - and the adhesive substance covering them allow the clutch to perfectly mask in the flour and go unnoticed until crawling larvae appear.
2
No matter how shocking the detection of flour worms is, you should not reproach yourself. The reason for their appearance has nothing to do with the lack of hygiene in the kitchen. With almost one hundred percent certainty, it can be argued that the product was infected when buying at least flour beetle eggs. So, the appearance of worms was only a matter of time. But to begin to act should be immediate. The first step is to inspect all cabinets and food supplies for worm detection. Of course, all affected products must be immediately discarded. After that, you will have to wash all the kitchen furniture, paying special attention to the corners and joints. Ideally, they should be poured with vinegar in order not to give the surviving larvae a single chance. After two weeks, treatment should be repeated again in the same order.
3
It is impossible to completely prevent the appearance of flour worms in the kitchen, since any packet of flour may contain these parasites or their eggs. But if you immediately pour the purchased product into tightly closed glass or plastic jars, wait at least 1-2 weeks before using it and be sure to sift the flour before adding it to the dough, you can not only remain confident in the purity of the product, but also save the rest reserves in case the parasite managed to nevertheless enter your apartment.
note
If you need to use a product you just bought, you can send it before cooking for a couple of hours in the freezer. This will kill the beetle eggs, and subsequent screening will help remove them from the product.
Useful advice
Flourworms love moist and warm places, therefore it is necessary to store food in such conditions so that the larvae do not have a single chance of survival.
