Why The FDA Is Cool With A Little Mouse Hair In Our Peanut Butter

The very best peanut butter is smooth, creamy, delicious, and ... occasionally contains a bit of mouse hair? Don't doubt your eyes, you read that right. Somewhat counterintuitively, The Food and Drug Administration (the organization that is supposed to make sure our food is safe) actually allows small amounts of what it calls "food defects" to be present in the stuff we eat. 

The FDA allows several extraneous materials to be present in food, including rodent hair. While that might sound horrifying, we have to acknowledge that, even with advanced cleaning, sorting, and processing methods, there's no way to ensure a jar of peanut butter (be it from the best or the worst brand out there) is entirely free of microscopic extras without making food production absurdly expensive. If the FDA had a zero-tolerance policy for all contaminants, food prices would skyrocket and we'd likely see more shortages due to many batches being rejected. For these reasons, the FDA just makes sure the levels of these materials remain within what it considers to be safe and acceptable levels. 

The FDA's "Food Defect Levels Handbook" outlines just how much foreign material can legally be in food products before they are deemed a health hazard. Take peanut butter, for example. The FDA allows up to one rodent hair per 100 grams of peanut butter. While that might sound horrifying, it's not the only nauseating contaminant that the FDA allows.

The Food and Drug Administration also allows 100 grams of peanut butter to contain as many as 30 insect fragments. If you're making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which you should totally grill), you could be getting a little extra protein courtesy of some finely ground critter bits. Other foods have their own standards. Tomato paste can contain up to 20 fly eggs per 100 grams (this number fluctuates depending on the tomato product), and wheat flour can contain around four rodent dropping pellets per pound. When it comes to mold, the FDA relies on percentages. For example, up to 5% of a sample of bay leaves can be moldy.

It is important to keep in mind that these amounts are considered harmless. The FDA doesn't allow anything that poses a legitimate health risk, like live insects or dangerous bacteria, to be present in food. Those who insist that even one insect fragment is a fragment too many would do well to learn that they've probably already eaten plenty of these "defects" without noticing. In fact, some researchers estimate that the average American unknowingly consumes about 2 pounds of insects per year through processed foods.