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What Are Pantry Pests And How Can You Protect Your Food Against Them?

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What are pantry pests and how can you protect your food against them?

There is nothing more disgusting than finding some small black insects crawling all over your favorite cereals. But this does happen. If you are not careful enough, your kitchen, including the pantry, can become overrun by these pantry pests.

What are Pantry Pests?

Pantry pests, in a nutshell, are those that infest your stored food products. Some of the most common types of pantry pests are the beetles and moths. One moth, in particular, the Indianmeal moth, lives, feeds, breeds, and thrives on stored food. As for the beetles that infest stored foods, you have red flour beetle as well as the spider beetle. You also have the flour beetle, the warehouse beetle, and the dermestid beetle. Other types of beetles that infest the pantry include the sawtoothed grain beetles as well as the merchant grain beetle.

Weevils such as the bean weevils as well as the cigarette weevils also thrive on stored food. You also have the drugstore and rice weevils, as well as the granary and flour weevils.

These pantry pests tend to infest not only cereals but also flour, rice, corn, powdered milk, and spices. They will also infest ready-to-eat snacks such as popcorns, crackers, and biscuits, as well as dried fruits and nuts. If you have pets, you will also see them in your pet food containers.

Getting Rid of Pantry Pests

Below are some tips for getting rid of pantry pests:

  • Look for the source. If you want to reduce their population, then look for the source of the infestation. Go through your pantry and kitchen, remove everything that seems to have signs of infestation such as little insects, webbing, small black droppings, etc. If you find some boxes infested with these tiny insects, dispose of them right away. You can place the whole box inside a pail, for example, and pour boiling water over it. The heat can effectively kill them. Another less messy way of killing the pests is to place the boxes inside the freezer. The high temperature can kill them. Of note though; the containers need to stay in the freezer for about four days to effectively kill them in all their stages – from eggs to larvae, to adult insects.
  • Give your kitchen a good cleaning. Remove their easy and accessible food source, and they will be forced to leave your home in search of a new source of food. In addition to cleaning your home, it is also very important that you seal up all the cracks and crevices that these pests could easily slip through. Finally, make sure that you keep your garbage cans away from your home, and see to it as well that they are covered to deter pests. o Of course, if the infestation is severe, you can always call your local pest control provider to take care of the matter for you.

With these methods, you can keep pantry pests away from your kitchen and food.