Are Bugs in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?

Answer 1

Peanuts grow in and on dirt. Unless you completely drench a field in poisonous pesticides (which people get VERY upset about), the field that dirt is in is also home to mice, rats, birds and all kinds of bugs. When you harvest the peanuts, it is inevitable that a small amount of mouse parts, mouse poop, bugs, feathers & whatever else also gets harvested. This is true of ALL vegetable crops, and the 'contamination' is FAR, FAR higher for so-called "organic" crops.

To encourage a best-effort to keep foods clean, the FDA have established maximum limits of these contaminants that are "allowable" (ie unavoidable) in foods that go to market.

Peanut butter can have 30 or more insect fragments, 1 rodent hair, and no more than 25 mg rat poop per 100 grams peanut.

Source(s):The Official FDA "allowable levels" list

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.htm...