Bugs In Fruit

2026-06-25

A few weeks ago we went berry picking, a bunch of our oldest kids friends’ (I hope that is the right use of that) parents made a plan to go mulberry picking. It is one where you go to a far and you pick it yourself. I guess mulberries are this healthy berry that is from India (or greater Asia) that one guy decided to bring back to the California and plant on his farm. We drive out an hour and a half on small roads to go to the farm. One the way we pass lots of signs, ‘Cherry picking’, ‘Strawberry picking’, etc. The weather is good and hot, we all bring hats. When we get there it reminds me of a farm, hot, sunny, a little dusty. There are no chickens or dogs since it isn’t a family farm, more of a industrial style farm.

We meet up with our friends and pick mulberries, they are really gentle to pick and we use something that looks like half a bottle attached to a broom stick to get the ones that are higher up. It is a nice time, the kids have fun, none of my kids really want to pick so my lovely wife Sneha does most of the picking and I sit with both of the kids. Eventually it get hot and we eat lunch at the picnic tables. We all eat some unwashed mulberries, they are delicious. We say goodbye and go home with a few flats (plastic containers) of mulberries.

When we get home we put them in the fridge.

A few days pass.

And then I think the mulberries are slowly going bad so I make more of an effort to eat them. I wash some and snack on them during work. I wash more and give them to the kids. And then we are on the last flat of mulberries and it is just me alone in the house with them. I wash them and put them in a bowl and I notice that there are a few bugs crawling around on them. They are little worms or larve, maybe a mm or two long. And the close I look the more I see, one two three four five. And so I google it a little, if you put them in some light acid and water they will detach. So I find some apple cider vinegar (I couldn’t find the white vinegar) and I add a bunch of water and I let the berries stew for a few minutes. And in the water I see a lot of bugs floating around, clinging to the berries, etc. And at this point I am pretty grossed out and I throw away the remaining mulberries.

And that is the story. I was trying to think about what I learned from it, one is that eating bugs is gross but not that big of a deal. Two is that I do appreciate the grocery store or fruit packing industry a little more, there must be some process that some fruit goes through to make sure there isn’t a ton of bugs in it.

-Gary