Served up any mouse excrement lately? FDA says you probably have
Eaten any mouse excrement lately?
“Of course not!” would be the reflexive answer … but, oh, you have.
Don’t believe me? You can check it out for yourself in the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Defect Level Handbook. Go to the section titled Commodities and Defect Action Levels.
If you’ve eaten any grains, whole or processed-- wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley and any other grain you can name, whether you ate it in cereal, bread, pasta, grits, tortillas or beer-- you’ve tasted a mouse’s bathroom.
Because they don’t see well, mice mark every step of their journeys with urine and excrement. Moreover, mice compete with us for that grain. In one year, one male and one female mouse can produce between 32 and 120 direct offspring.
However, because their offspring reach sexual maturity in as little as 6 weeks, the total population from a single pair can theoretically explode to over 5,000 mice within a single year through exponential growth.
Similarly, you might have heard of rat droppings being ‘allowed’ in cereal and grain products. This rumor is unfortunately based on reality.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does have established ‘defect action levels’ for contaminants like rodent filth, acknowledging that it is not possible to completely remove all natural defects during food production.
While any amount is unpleasant, the acceptable levels for rodent contamination (including feces) vary by food product. Here are a few examples:
Wheat —The FDA allows an average of up to 9 rodent poop pellets per kilogram (roughly 4 pellets per pound).
Coffee Beans — Coffee beans are allowed to contain up to 10 milligrams of animal poop per pound.
Other foods — The FDA’s Food Defect Levels Handbook referenced above outlines specific, low-level allowances for various foods to ensure they are, as much as possible, free from filth.
These standards are in place because low levels of these contaminants are considered unavoidable, even with good manufacturing practices. The levels are set based on what is practical, not necessarily because they are entirely harmless, but they are not generally considered a health hazard at these minimum, regulated amounts.
Coffee beans, in addition to allowable animal poop noted above, are permitted to contain “acceptable” amounts of rodent hairs and insect and mammalian feces in specified amounts.
You’ll find a long list of acceptable “defect levels” by scanning the FDA’s handbook.
Looking at the facts, even the best-kept stockrooms are subject to infestation, so boycotting grocery stores isn’t the solution. The amount is negligible enough that you’d never notice it.
Another food rumor is that hot dogs contain rat droppings. The units that the government use to measure foreign items in food products are in parts per billion. What this means for the consumer is that normal everyday activities put you at greater risk than, say, eating a hot dog, which could possibly contain very negligible amounts of rat poop. This myth has survived because it is not really possible to avoid contamination 100%. Normal rat dropping production is around 40-50 pellets a day.
Because of the way foods are mass harvested, factory processed and packaged in the United States, the FDA has to allow food companies to include a certain number of “defects” in the final products. The term “defects” is code for the inclusion of “foreign matter” in canned and packaged foods, including insects, insect parts, rodent hairs, larvae, rodent poop, mammal poop, bone material, mold, rust, and cigarette butts. These “defects” are not dangerous in the quantities they’re allowed, the FDA says, but still: what was that about ignorance and bliss?
In 100 grams of corn meal—that’s roughly the amount required by your average corn bread recipe—the FDA says it’s OK to have two or more “whole insects,” 100 or more insect fragments, and either 4 rodent hairs or 2 or more chunks of rodent poop. Yum!
© Linda M. Hasselstrom. Reprint with permission only.
South Dakota rancher Linda M. Hasselstrom writes poetry and nonfiction. She is the winner of numerous awards.
Photo: USDA inspects grain, public domain, wikimedia commons
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