How To Remove Bugs From Strawberries With Salt Water, a video in TikTok has gone viral on social media apparently showing how to clean bugs from strawberries by soaking them in saltwater. The video was posted a few days ago by Seleste Radcliffe and already has over 2.5 million views on TikTok and over 90 thousand likes.
The video can be viewed here:
In her video, Radcliffe says: “if you wash your strawberries in saltwater, all the bugs will come out out of strawberries, which we even don’t know there were bugs in there. It’s very easy to get salt and water, now you can put your strawberries in, and little critters will come out!”
People who has said that they didn’t seen the bugs coming out in the video, many of them tried with no success. Users have pointed out that the “bugs” may actually be stems or seeds from the strawberry. One user commented on the TikTok viral video said: “Am the only one who didn’t see anything?” Someone else answered, “the only ‘white’ things I saw were strawberry flower petals.” Another said, “I missed it too.”
In another comment, a user said that it’s not a bug that’s a dried up piece of the stem lol.” Another user said: “I just tried it and didn’t see any bugs and I’m disappointed.”
Others said they saw the bugs, though, and commented their disgust at the video. One said, “Let’s just say I’m never eating strawberries again.” Another added, “So I’ve been eating bugs this whole time.” One reply stated: “Strawberries used to be my favorite until now.”
According to one expert, assistant professor at the University of Florida and small fruit crop entomologist Priyanka Lahiri, the tiny white worms are the maggots of a fly known as spotted wing drosophila (SWD). Lahiri told that this is an invasive species that lays its eggs inside ripe berries, and the maggots hatch inside the fresh fruit.
She also said, “Since common fruit flies can only lay their eggs in softening, damaged, or rotting fruit, the maggots hitchhiking inside strawberries definitely belong to the SWD species.” However, she clarified that the SWD is attracted to strawberries and other berries, pest management techniques in crops can successfully avoid infestation, and not all berries have maggots inside them.
Lahiri said that people should wash fruits before eating them, though the maggots which live deep inside the fruit, “Staying submerged in water might force a few of them out.” She also said that she didn’t heard of saltwater being used before, and indicated that it might affect the taste of the berry. She reassured people eating these maggots in fruit without realizing has “no known ill effects.”
