TikTok is the latest social media craze, and people are loving all the different videos and viral trends that are emerging as a result. However, there was one video trend that deeply disturbed on Buzzfeed reporter, Krista Torres. It was multiple TikTok videos advising viewers to soak berries in saltwater in order to kill any bugs or mites that may be living inside.
Of course, Torres was a little skeptical at first, assuming it was just another TikTok trend. Still, the thought of mites and bugs was a little icky, so she decided to investigate further. And as she revealed, the results were horrific. It turned out that creepy crawlies did indeed emerge from her produce!
Torres ended up posting the results to her own TikTok. Needless to say, the video was quite disturbing. In the video, she’s holding her strawberries saying, “Apparently there are little bugs inside these guys.”
As she further explained in the video, the process is to fill up a water glass with some salt, then once the salt as dissolved, you can place the berries into the glass. Following that, Torres shared with her viewers that the key is to let the strawberries soak in the saltwater for about 10 minutes. Then, like a science experiment gone wrong, she witnessed the horror as tiny worm-like insects began to emerge from the strawberries!
In the video, her response was, “There it is… I’m going to barf.”
We’re right there with you.
She added, “The bugs blend in with the seeds and start crawling out of them.”
Perhaps the worst part of the video was the fact that out of the eight strawberries that she soaked in saltwater, she saw tiny worms emerge from six of them – those are not pleasant stats at all. Armed with her unsettling discovery, Torres decided to do some research on the little white worms and found some interesting information. For a start, they are actually the offspring of a fruit fly known as the Spotted Wing Drosophila. As explained on a gardening website, the female fruit fly will inject her eggs into fruits that are just starting their ripening process – they’re particularly drawn to berries such as blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries.
@callmekristatorres WAIT FOR IT… Still trying to think happy thoughts today. #fyp #foryou #strawberrieswithbugs #bugsinstrawberries #rednoseday #got2bhome
Following her discovery, Torres has stated that she couldn’t bring herself to eat the strawberries that she soaked. Yeah, no kidding! However, she did give them to her son, who commented that the berries tasted “a little salty.”
But don’t get too grossed out, as Torres found, the FDA food safety recommendations actually allow for fresh produce to have some amount of bug contamination while being sold. Wonderful!
Torres ended her video by saying, “So, while this discovery is very upsetting to me, I also know that life must go on.”
And while that may be true, I can’t help but feel like any of us will be able to look at a strawberry the same again.