I'm the first to admit that I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to my health, safety and general well being. I am a strict vegetarian, mostly vegan except for special occasions, exercise 4-5x a week, I hate going out on holidays because I'm positive I'll be killed by a drunk driver and I don't use the ketchup on the table at restaurants. I also only buy organic fruits and vegetables. This is where my story begins.
My husband and I were fortunate to be able to go to Coachella for both weekends this year, but that meant hotel food, drinking and almost no fresh produce which kind of makes me insane. The Wednesday after our desert extravaganza, I was more than happy to get up very early before work and do a huge grocery run at Whole Foods. After my 9 hour shift was over, I was starved and rushed home to start dinner. First step was to clean all of the vegetables and the process goes a little something like this: fill large mixing bowl with water and Veggie Wash, soak/swish item(s) in solution, rinse thoroughly, pat dry.
Remember: I was the hungriest girl ever at this point. I grabbed my 2 stalks of broccoli that were rubber banded together, cleaned them, immediately chopped and practically inhaled one of the entire stalks. I moved on to the second stalk, this time moving much more slowly and paying closer attention. As I began cutting, I noticed what looked like grayish dirt oh the underside of the head (you'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge of exact broccoli anatomy terminology). I looked closer and my stomach began to turn as I saw that the grayish colored dirt was not dirt at all. It was maybe 5 trillion teeny tiny gray bugs. I had just eaten what could possibly have been thousands of bugs.
I know what you're thinking: People have been eating bugs for hundreds, if not thousands of years. FUCK YOU. I don't eat bugs. I don't eat cows, chickens, pigs, fish or snails and I sure as hell don't eat bugs. I have never consensually eaten a bug and I never will.
Now that you're aware of my neurotic tendencies, you'll understand my next move. In a full on panic, I ran to the phone and called poison control. This is it. This is the end. Lights out. Death by broccoli. The operator assured me that I was in no real danger and that my only worry is food poisoning. ONLY food poisoning?! Well if my only worry is sleeping on the bathroom floor in between bouts of bile rocketing out of my nostrils and burning my sinuses, then I'm in walking on sunshine! Instead of actually dying, I get to lay in the fetal position on our beautiful tile wishing I was dead.
I then turned to my best friend Google and asked about organic broccoli bugs. Low and behold, there were countless pages about these bugs and how almost all organically grown broccoli has them. Apparently, Veggie Wash does nothing to get rid of them, you have to soak your broccoli in a salt water or a vinegar/water solution to get rid of them. Has this been common knowledge to everyone but me? Know what? Fuck you, Whole Foods. You maybe couldn't put up a sign saying "Beware of evil broccoli bugs. Soak your shit in salt water"????
Lesson learned: If I ever eat broccoli again (which I'm pretty sure I will not), it will not be organic. Bring on the chemical pesticides, bitch.
The End.
This scares me very very much...I just ate broccoli for dinner.
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