Carol S. wrote:
Hi,

I had a bag of brown rice in my pantry for a long time (over a year)
that was unopened. I finally decided to try it out, but when I poured
it into a pot, there were little brown bugs crawling around it, and
the rice grains were hollowed out. I threw it out, of course!

I'm pretty sure they were rice weevils, based on a google search. My
question is do I have to throw out everything in my pantry now? I
inspected a few other things and didn't see any signs of the bugs.
Could they have just come along in that bag of rice to begin with, and
then just stayed there? How can they live in a plastic bag for a
year with no air or water?

Thanks, Carol Scheible


Although rare, it's possible that the bugs came with the bag. I
once bought a bag of 50 lb of rice and put it in a closet. Before
I had a chance to open the bag, bugs crawled out of it. For the
past 25 years, I typically buy 100 lb of rice a year. That's the
only bag that had problems.