Flies are annoying insects that often find their way into your food. Fruit flies are particularly annoying because they can get inside fruit and vegetables — making them more difficult to see. You can sometimes accidentally eat fruit flies because of this. But what happens when you eat fruit flies? Should you be concerned?
How you can accidentally eat fruit flies
First, it’s important to know how you can accidentally eat these nasty insects. This way, you can implement measures to avoid these situations.
- You have bought fruits and vegetables that are infested with fruit flies. Because of their name, you may think that fruit flies only feast on fruits. In reality, they can also feast on vegetables. They are particularly attracted to ripe, overripe, and rotting fruits and vegetables. If you have these at home, check them for fruit flies and maggots. If you don’t, you may end up consuming these food items, giving you a variety of medical conditions like asthma attacks and myiasis. You can also experience food poisoning because of the bacteria in the food items.
- You have a garden. Do you grow fruits and vegetables outside of your home? Well, tough luck — you are more vulnerable to pests who like to have a taste of your juicy produce. Fruit flies are just some of these pests. You have other pests to deal with, such as squirrels, but that’s for another article. Fruit flies are particularly attracted to grapes, melons, and tomatoes. Tomatoes are unfortunately famous among hobbyists.
- You don’t inspect your food before you eat. Because of modern agriculture and pesticide, most people don’t even think about food pests like fruit flies. It’s understandable if you don’t heavily inspect the food items you buy from the market. But know that this puts you at an increased risk of accidentally eating fruit flies. You can never be too sure about when you will encounter these pests. It’s good practice to at least look at your fruits and vegetables a little more thoroughly while you are washing them, especially if they are already ripe.
What happens when you eat fruit flies
Generally, nothing will happen to you when you accidentally eat fruit flies, maggots, or their eggs. No diseases are directly associated with them. But the keyword here is generally. You can still get sick by accidentally ingesting these pests.
- Your stomach will digest the fruit flies like nothing. You have accidentally eaten bugs before. It’s no big deal. If you are a generally healthy person, you won’t experience any kind of problem. Your stomach will simply digest the fruit flies like it typically does to any food you ingest. If you have accidentally ingested them alive, then they will die from the acids in your stomach. Don’t underestimate the resilience of the human body and the immune system. They deal with a lot of threats every day and you don’t even feel anything weird. They are protecting you silently.
- You can get a variety of medical conditions. Flies in general, not just fruit flies, are dirty animals. You will often find them in drains, garbage cans, sewers, and other unsanitary places. This means that their bodies and insides are filled with bacteria — bacteria that they can pass onto you. They can give you cholera, e. Coli infection, salmonellosis, and many other diseases. Exposure to flies, maggots, and eggs also triggers allergic reactions and asthma attacks in some people. In rare cases, accidental ingestion of maggots also leads to intestinal myiasis, where the maggots survive in the gastrointestinal tract.
- You can experience food poisoning. Sometimes, the danger of eating fruit flies is not about the fruit flies themselves, but the food. Remember that fruit flies are attracted to ripe, overripe, and rotting fruits and vegetables. Sure, your stomach can digest fruit flies like nothing. But you can’t say the same for the bacteria that are already thriving in the rotting food item you have just ingested. A person experiencing food poisoning will show a variety of symptoms, such as fever, nausea, stomachache, and vomiting.
How to avoid eating fruit flies
Yes, nothing is likely to happen to you when you accidentally eat fruit flies. But this doesn’t mean that you should be okay with ingesting these disgusting pests. Here are simple things you can do to avoid eating fruit flies.
- Buy food only from reputable sources. Buy all food items, not just fruits and vegetables, from reputable sources only such as big supermarket chains. The problem with small shops like street stalls is that they may not be as heavily regulated as big commercial businesses. They also have less to lose when they get into controversies. However, you can still never be too sure with these big corporations. This is why it’s still important to always check your food before eating.
- Be more proactive if you have a garden. You are more likely to attract fruit flies and accidentally eat them if you have a garden, especially if your garden has a variety of fruits and vegetables that fruit flies particularly like. Juicy and watery fruits and vegetables like tomatoes are great targets for fruit flies. Make sure to pick your fruits and vegetables before they become overripe and become prime targets. Don’t let them start fermenting in your garden.
- Always check the food before eating. Always inspect food before buying them even from a reputable source. You don’t even have to know what fruit flies, maggots, and their eggs look like. When you see something suspicious on the food you are inspecting, be wary. It’s also good practice to inspect food while you are washing them, especially if they fit the description of food items fruit flies like — ripe, overripe, and rotting. And if the food item is already rotting, why are you preparing it in the first place? Throw it away immediately.
Generally, nothing happens
You can accidentally eat fruit flies, maggots, and their eggs because they like to stay in ripe, overripe, and rotting fruits and vegetables. You are not likely to get sick when you accidentally ingest these pests because your stomach and immune system are more resilient than you think.
But don’t be too complacent. You still don’t want to eat flies because they are full of disease-causing microorganisms. The food that has them may also be spoiled, giving you even more health problems like food poisoning.