Rat bread
 

Rats just get into the damnedest places. Kind of reminds you of the 'notmyjob' image from a couple of years ago, doesn't it?

http://members.verizon.net/~slithy/images/ratbread.jpg

Grabbed from Davezilla.com.

KaCHING!
 

You see a rat in bread, I see about a million dollar settlement.

That's so awesome, man it really does happen.

I should point out that that's a mouse, not a rat.

i agree. mouse.

Mouse. You'll be lucky to get $250,000 from that one.

The question I have is: what happened to the 1000 loaves that went through the same slicing machine after this one?

Yes, those are the loaves that you and I ate.

Makes you not want to eat bread, doesn't it?

the first thing i said when i saw it was "that's a mouse."

yay, rodent lovers jenno and dave :)

Yes it's a mouse
 

It's also a huge liability exposure for some bread company, and solid gold for the lucky finder.

And sure, I would agree not to file suit if they cut me a check for $250,000.

After cutting me a mouse.

Yick.

"lucky" referring to the fact that they hadn't yet made their grilled cheese, not that they stumbled upon some money :)

wheat bread anyone?

:)

Truth or Urban Myth:
 

Aren't food manufacturers *allowed* a certain number of rats, mice, insects or insect parts per unit of product? Isn't there a set tolerance?

There's a spec somewhere I think that says something to the effect of "Bread must be 99.99999% rat-free". I don't know exactly what the percentage happens to be, my point is that it isn't 100%.

Which read differently says "For every ten million loaves of bread you ship, you may include one containing a sliced rat".

Mouse.

Whatever.

can you say "bread machine"?
 

I haven't bought bread from the store since we bought our bread machine. Show me a picture of a rat/mouse/squirrel in a bag of flour... now *that* will have some meaning for me. :)

It's actually that food may be impure up to a certain point. In other words, you've eaten rat shit before, no doubt about it. Some in a hamburger or cheese or whatever. I don't think there's a specific "rat quotient" for food or anything, but yes, there definitely are more things in our food than we think.

Stats also suggest that the average United States human swallows 3-4 spiders per year. Yum!

Re: can you say "bread machine"?
 

Hubris? Hubris?

OK since no one else said it I will. "This picture is the greatest thing since sliced rat."

This is funny because you eat nasty stuff all the time, whether or not you can see it. That is the magic of your digestive system. If what you ate was truly bad for you then it will find its way out of you quicker than normal.

Who knows who touched your food before you picked it up and put it your mouth? It's not listed on the label. And here is another happy thought for you. When you smell shit, what you are smelling are shit particles in your nose.

i've happily eaten in vietnamese street stalls, if it doesn't move, it usually won't make me sick.

you're right
 

Come to think of it, I think insects and some arthropods are actually *healthy* to eat.

So you're wolfing down a burrito at your local taco shack, and you crunch something unusual. Spit it out? Or just keep munching?

I know I usually just keep munching, I can glean enough information from the crunch to know whether my system can probably handle it or not. And I'd rather not know what it was, because chances are fare to middling that it was a fat juicy spider. Spitting it out and seeing the remains would scar me for life, while simply swallowing the remains without making a positive identification will introduce enough plausible deniability that I actually ate a spider to just pretend that I did not.

I know those 3-4 spiders I consume each year are just packed with spidery goodness. Mmmm!

Oh, and one more thing. The odds of getting a bug in your food are not at all related to just random chance.

Teenage food prep technicians will generally place any large insects captured at work into food on a dare, if they couldn't get laid or score any weed or if they just feel like it. Next time you're in your local pizzaria, count the dead flies on the shelves or other horizontal surfaces in the cooking area. Don't see any? Know why?

And lastly: If you are a policeman and think that eating in public restaurants in your uniform is a good idea, it isn't.

I don't think that a customer could have actually purchased this loaf of bread and brought it home with them.

At best, the store's stocker would have noticed the rat and pulled the loaf. At worst, the rat would be noticed by the customer or cashier prior to purchasing it.

perhaps the bottom of the bag was opaque?

Yeah, when I'm buying a loaf of bread, I don't just grab it and stick it in my cart. No, I pull it out and thoroughly inspect it to make sure there's nothing foul in it, like a smashed & sliced mouse. :P

i bet you will now.

Strange Brew
 

Bob and Doug MacKenzie, eh?

You bet wrong. It's not worth the extra effort for the miniscule chance of it happening.

actually
 

I don't think I'll ever again be able to buy bread without checking it out pretty good.

If I've already lifted it off the shelf, it will be easy to just look it over as I place it in the cart.

Yep, the Cellar has modified my behavior yet again.