Dubai: Found an insect in your greens? Do not fret – this is a normal occurrence and municipal officials have said there is no need to panic.
“Organic food will typically have more insects than regular vegetables sprayed with pesticide. Insects may be disgusting but they are not hazardous. But if a customer finds a large number of insects in his fresh vegetables, he should certainly notify the authorities immediately,” said Bobby Krishna, Senior Food Studies and Surveys Officer, Food Control Department at Dubai Municipality.
Krishna explained that food-producing companies do not wash all the vegetables, such as lettuce, because they can get spoilt and so the responsibility to clean them lies with the customer.
“Any farm product should be washed carefully under running water with friction for at least a few seconds. It can then be left to air dry on a tray,” he said.
He stressed that Dubai Municipality has placed stringent measures on farms since 2010 to ensure that they do not use contaminated water or untreated manure, and that vegetables are not abundantly sprayed with pesticide. The municipality also carries out random checks on food items, and sends them to its central laboratory to test for harmful diseases.
“My wife and I frequently visit a supermarket near our home and for the third time, found bugs in the salad purchased from there. And once there was even a worm. Many consumers could just be eating foodstuff without checking it properly, and this could be happening everywhere in [supermarkets],” said Sameer Ali, a concerned resident.
Food experts however, have recently been looking into insects as an alternative food source and the idea of consuming houseflies, caterpillars, termites and ants is being contemplated by a number of governments.
According to a report published last month by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), two billion people — a third of the world’s population — are already eating insects.
“Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint,” said the report, co-authored by the FAO and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
“The prospect of farms processing insects for feed might soon become a global reality due to a growing demand for sustainable feed sources,” said the report, but “consumer disgust remains one of the largest barriers to the adoption of insects as viable sources of protein in many Western countries”.
