Don’t Let Pantry Pests Ruin Your Cooking
With spring holidays on the horizon, people are stocking their pantries with baking goods awaiting their conversion into tasty confections and concoctions. With these items, however, comes the possibility of infestation by insects and other pantry pests. Stored foods commonly infested include flour, cereals, baking mixes, processed foods, crackers, macaroni, cured meats, powdered milk, dried fruits, nuts, popcorn and spices. Insects that feed on these products may also infest other grain-based items such as pet foods, birdseed and ornamental corn.
The most common pantry pests include beetles, weevils, moths and ants. These insects can infest food in a warehouse before they reach the grocery store and do not make themselves known until they reach the home.
- Beetles including drugstore beetles, confused flour beetles and red flour beetles prefer flour, cornmeal, boxed mixes, dry pasta and dry cereals. They can bore through paper or cardboard packaging to enter or exit the food source.
- Rice weevils are tiny black beetles with a short snout that love to infest whole grain foods as well as cornmeal and flour.
- Moths such as the Indian Meal Moth prefers nuts, pasta, birdseeds and dry pet food while the Angoumois grain moth prefers popcorn, Indian corn decorations, and seeds in dried flower arrangements. Food infested with moths will contain webbing and small caterpillars that will leave their feeding area and spin a cocoon in a hidden location such as a crack or under other food packages.
- Ants such as sugar ants, also known as pharaoh ants, on occasion infest peanut butter, sugary cereals and sometimes jams or jellies that are not properly sealed.
Here are some tips that may help you prevent infestations:
- Whenever possible, buy food in small quantities so that it will not be stored for a long period.
- If foods are kept long periods, remove them from their original containers and store them either in airtight glass, metal or plastic containers or in the refrigerator.
- Caulk cracks and crevices where food debris could accumulate.
- Clean up any spillage in cabinets immediately and thoroughly.
- Give food storage cabinets a thorough cleaning at least once a year.
As national spokesperson for Truly Nolen of America, Barry “The Bug Guy” Murray has over 20years of experience in the pest control industry. Barry brings an informative as well as unique and entertaining perspective to consumers’ pest problems in the 21st Century. Founded in 1938, Truly Nolen of America is one of the largest family owned pest control companies in the United States. Truly Nolen has 69 branch offices in Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. The company also has independently owned and operated franchises in an ever-growing number of territories including California, Florida, Texas, New York, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Arkansas, and Missouri as well as Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit www.trulynolen.com.