The FDA keeps a document called the Defect Levels Handbook that outlines exactly what types of defects mass-produced food can have and still be considered safe to eat.
The Handbook (which you can read in full here!) describes in detail the “levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans.” The reason it exists is because it’s impossible to mass-produce food without the occasional defect, and the FDA needs to draw the line somewhere to guarantee that people who eat that food stay safe and healthy.
Listed below are some of the defect limits set by the FDA — that is, the point where the food becomes “adulterated.” Defects less than what’s listed below won’t hurt you, and are legally allowed.
(But thinking about them may just make you sick. Sorry about that!)
Before you, uh, dig in to this information, you should read what the FDA’s Handbook has to say about these limits:
It is incorrect to assume that because the FDA has an established defect action level for a food commodity, the food manufacturer need only stay just below that level. The defect levels do not represent an average of the defects that occur in any of the products—the averages are actually much lower. The levels represent limits at which FDA will regard the food product “adulterated”; and subject to enforcement action under Section 402(a)(3) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act.
Got all that? Good. Now read on, and prepare to completely lose your appetite:
1. Mites in frozen broccoli. There can be up to 60 mites per 100 grams of broccoli without breaking any laws. 100 grams is about three-and-a-half ounces.
2. Maggots in your maraschino cherries. 5% is the cutoff. That means that you could still get a jar of cherries that is 4% maggots.
3. Rodent hairs in cinnamon. Every fifty grams can have up to 11 hairs in it, and that’s perfectly acceptable to the FDA.
4. Sand in your raisins. You can have up to 40 milligrams of sand per 100 grams of raisins.
5. “Mammalian excreta” in your ginger . . . a.k.a., rat poop. Every pound of ginger is allowed to have up to three milligrams of rat poop mixed in.
(Buzzfeed)