FDA: A Little Rodent Filth in Your Food is A-OK
By: Becky Bracken
Published: May 19, 2011

The FDA has released a report that will kill any love you might have had for canned mushrooms, ground oregano and whole bunch of other stuff you never knew was so gross. 
Today the FDA released the "Defect Levels Handbook" that details how much contamination is allowable by federal law in many foods. Read the whole report at your own risk. From maggots and insect eggs to rodent filth, it's hard to believe there are actually levels of contamination the FDA will accept.  
The FDA says in the report they understand that it wouldn't be economically feasible to grow, harvest and produce food without "non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects." Which sounds perfectly reasonable. It's just when you realize those unavoidable defect include insect fragments, it's gets a little dicey. 
Take canned tomatoes for instance. It's only a problem when 500 grams of canned tomatoes have 10 or more fly eggs or 2 or more maggots. Anyone else think even one fly egg is too many?