Food Fight #54
Ants Reject Rice
Ants will eat practically anything. I've seen them carry off peanut butter, pollen, jelly with mold, stale cereal bars, insects, candy, hotdogs and honey but not brown rice.
Granted, the rice was more than a year old. It was Great Value brown rice from Walmart. The plastic bag it came in and the rice had been stored in a plastic margarine container most of the time.
I opened the container a few days ago and something didn't look right. There were several dark brown grayish grains in otherwise pale brown rice, One of the grains fluttered. My heart shuddered. I poured the rice on the ground. Almost immediately, an ant dragged away one of the moths. Another ant carried two grains that were stuck together over about 6 feet of rugged terrain and finally into its home. I took a couple of handfuls of rice and placed it right outside the ant entrance. It has now been more than two days and the rice is still there, both piles. Most of us know ants will clean up anything edible very quickly. They won't eat this rice.
Not Fit For Consumption
Evidently when ants find something and bring it home, one of their chemists analyzes it before sending out the troops to scoop up the rest of it. This rice didn't pass the fit for consumption test. Very few of the ants will even crawl over this rice.
No, this has nothing to do with how long I had the rice. Ants will eat practically anything. In fact, during the past few days, these same ants quickly took away nail clippings within ten minutes.
Ant Sense versus FDA Nonsense
This is not about Walmart but about rice products in general being sold as safe. This is not about rice but about food in general we're being told is safe. Needless to say from previous posts, I don't have much faith in the FDA.
There's plenty of information on the dangers of arsenic and other stuff in rice but the FDA has shrugged this off and basically is telling us that hey, toxins are in the environment, of course it's going to be in your food. So I guess we should expect salmonella and listeria because they are naturally occurring also. The FDA has zero street cred. The FDA, USDA and EPA are all the same type of fellow Americans who approve a long list of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and toxins in food, personal care products, household products, on clothing and as acceptable to pollute the environment.
Even though ants are not picky eaters, they ain't crazy either and have the mental clarity to not eat what will harm them, unlike many humans. I'm going along with the ants on this one. Perhaps I should have kept the moths and thrown out the rice. Perhaps also, before I eat anything I purchase, I should place some beside the ant home to see what happens. At least they won't lie like the FDA.
Arsenic & Rice
Brown Rice and the Arsenic Conundrum
First Arsenic, Now Lead Found In Rice
What I'm telling my patients about arsenic and rice
As always, perform your own search. Consider the search phrase, “rice arsenic” or “rice toxin.”
A Little Arsenic Please
In most of the articles that say arsenic is dangerous, advice is given to just eat less of the poison, say once a week. How crazy is that? I can't afford to lose any cells and especially not knowingly kill them.
I'm surprised the FDA hasn't piggybacked this with an official statement that recommends we reduce our poison intake to an acceptable level. (Acceptable always means whatever we will accept. It has nothing to do with safety.) (Acceptable, in this case, is a contraction of the words “accept” and “gullible.”)
”While arsenic has been recognized as a contaminant in drinking water, there are currently no federal thresholds for arsenic in juices [made with water] or most foods.” Yet, the FDA says more research is needed. Dangerous in water but we just don't know yet if it's dangerous in food. Huh? Nonsense is the FDA Way.
Correct me if I'm wrong but don't all plants drink water? Aren't the cells of plants made mostly of water just like in humans? Aren't plants and food from plants filled with water? If a toxin is regulated as it pertains to water, shouldn't it be regulated as at pertains to food since the water in the food I eat is released inside of me? I don't need research or a scientist or the FDA to know the truth.
I learned from television it only takes a little arsenic to kill.
FDA Nonsense After Nonsense
Food Fight #11: Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010
Fluoride, Aspartame, BPA, Polysorbate 80 - Food Fight #17
Killing Me Softly, Killing Me Sweetly. Food Fight #19 – Another Approved Weapon of Mass Destruction
Food Definition: FDA, Nutrition, Alcohol, Wrigley's Chewing Gum. Food Fight #37
Nutrition Labeling Inconsistencies, FDA & USDA Breaking The Law Consistently. Food Fight #38
Meat Additives: Carbon Monoxide Injected. Food Fight #46
Choose Not To Be Confused
Don't be confused. As always deciding what to do starts with deciding who to listen to. For me, it's common sense, intuition, wisdom, experience, basic intelligence, ants, the rest of the natural world, humans being spirit and never the FDA & Company. This is my healthy choice.
Related Proverbs:
Follow no one's advice unless you also follow their values. Fully consider the advice of anyone who shows love for you by their repeated actions and treats you as family.
Related Posts:
Nature Of Ant Problems In Houses
Update 6/16/13. I cooked the rice for 35 minutes yesterday until mushy soft and the bigger ants still won't eat it. Some have said ants don't eat rice in the first place and some say they do. Some say the rice is too heavy for them to carry. Others say the ants won't eat rice because it will expand in their stomachs and kill them. Evidently, in order for us to know this, some ants didn't know.
It seems like the first place to start is to identify the type of ant. It is shiny and has a black head, black abdomen and red in between. The head is at least 4 times smaller than the abdomen. The middle portion has one large segment followed by one smaller round segment and possibly one more, even smaller segment. I have been unable to obtain a clear closeup picture. Overall size is about 3/8 inches. Here is a possible match:
1. Formica (neogagates-group) neogagates (I'm not convinced)2. Formica neogagates See the the 9th thumbnail picture.
Update 6/17/13. There are some ants about 1/3 to ¼ the size of those above that are now carrying away the cooked rice. These ants are very shiny and black. They appear to be black all over but could possible have a deep red middle. The larger ants avoid them and move quickly away when they encounter each other.
