There are two kinds of people in the world: those who knowingly eat bugs, and those who knowingly eat bugs. Oh yeah, you eat bugs. Even vegans eat bugs.
While farmers and food processors want our food to be pure, it is impossible to eliminate every contaminant from the food supply. Crops are covered in insects that do little to prevent a leg here or an antenna there from making it into the final product.
The FDA is fully aware of this, and even has a handbook describing allowable levels of "defects" in food. Peanut butter, for example, can have as many as 30 insect fragments per 3.5 ounces.
Wine is not immune to this trouble. The brown loach, which came to North America from Asia in the mid-20th century, likes to eat grapes and other fruits. During the winemaking process, organisms become stressed (being squashed tends to do that), and bedbugs live up to their name by producing a compound called trans-2-decanal (T2D). White wine T2D's
aren't a problem, probably because the chemicals changed during the winemaking process. But T2D is potentially troublesome for red wines, especially Pinot Noir, which usually doesn't contain T2D. So a team of researchers led by Elizabeth Tomasino of Oregon State University set out to determine how bedbugs affect the perception of wine.
The scientists made their own wine, and then threw in the idea that some bedbugs in the wine could add flavor. They found that a density of three bedbugs per cluster of grapes produced a wine with a T2D concentration of 2 μg/L.
It's small, but enough to be detected by consumers. In a previous study, the team found that some tasters could sense T2D at concentrations as low as 0.5 μg/L, although most tasters would need a concentration about 10 times that. Interestingly, the volunteers had mixed reactions; some loved T2D while others found it horrible. This isn't surprising, since T2D has also been found in cilantro. people's preference for flavors can be attributed to culture, genetics, or a combination of the two.
This invasive brown stink bug seems to be spreading in the United States. In order to maintain the consistency of their wines, winemakers must take steps to limit the number of bedbugs on their grapes. On the other hand, a special stinkbug-flavored two-block chuck may be on the menu for cilantro-loving customers.
Sourced from
(1) Pallavi Mochka, Trina J. Lapis, Nick G. Wyman, Yunlin Zhu, and Elizabeth Tomasino Bed Bug Contamination in Pinot Noir with Brown Marmorat: Detection and Consumer Rejection Thresholds for trans-2-Decenal "Am J Enol Vitic". . Advance publication: 17 August 2016. doi:10.5344/ajev.2016.15096
(2) Effect of Pallavi Mohekar, James Osborne, Nick Gwyman, Wharton, and Elizabeth Tomasino winemaking processing steps on brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys)-induced (E)-2-decenal and tridecane off-flavors. Food Chemistry. Published January 8, 2017. doi:10.1021/acs.jafc.6b04268
Original article on ACSH.