Natural Science Forum / Biology / Biology / January 2005

I have since looked at the book, "The microscopy of vegetable foods",
by Winton and Moeller, published in 1906. There are a couple of pages
devoted to chick peas. They have a lot of interesting information, such
as:
(a) that chick peas are used as a substitute for coffee
(b) drawings and discussion of microscopic images of spermoderm and surface
(c) histology
(d) bibliographic references, which seem to be mostly treatises on
   microscopy of plants and some on detection of adulteration.

The emphasis of the book seems to be on detecting adulteration, not on
identifying critters found in the food. There is some discussion of
critters at the beginning of the early chapter on grain, but not in
the chapter on legumes, which contains the stuff on chick peas. In
the discussion on insect and animal contamination of grains, they
cite a bulletin from 1896 from the US Dept of Agriculture, and mention
the following:
(i) Granary weevil (Calandra granaria L.)
(ii) Angoumois grain-moth (Sitotroga cerealella Ol.)
(iii) wolf-moth (Tinea granella L.)
(iv) Mediterranean flour-moth (Ephestia Kuehniella Zell.)
(v) Indian (maize) meal moth (Plodia interpunctella Hbn.)
(vi) meal snout-moth (Puralis farinalis L.)
(vii) confused flour-beetle (tribolium conjusum Duv.)
(viii) rust-red flouor beetle (tribolium ferrugineum Fab.)
(ix) slender-horned flour beetle (Echocerus cornutus Fab.)
(x) small-eyed flour beetle (Palorus ratzeburgi Wissm.)
(xi) yellow meal-worm (Tenebrio obscurus L.)
(xii) saw-toothed grain beetle (Silvanus surinamensis L.)
(xiii) red or square-necked grain beetle (Cathartus gemallatus Duv.)
(xiv) European grain-beetle (Cathartus advena Waltl.)
(xv) cadelle (Tenebroides mauritanicus L.)
(xvi) sugar-mite (Lapisma saccharina)
(xvii) common flour-mite (acarus farinae)
(xviii) feathered mite (Acarus plumiger)
(xix) wheat-worm (tylenus scandens Sch., Anguillula tritici Need.)

They cite Boehmer ("Die Kraftfuttermittel, ihre Rohstoffe, Herstellung,
Zusammensetzung, Verdaulichkeit und Verwendung, mit besonderer
Beruecksichtigung der Verfaelschungen und der mikroscopischen
Untersuchung", Berlin, 1903) and Chittenden ("Some insects injurious
to stored grain", mentioned earlier) for figures and descriptions
for identifying these species.

Regarding the saw-toothed grain beetle  (xii, above), I know someone
who purchased some crackers close to the pull date, found some critters
in the box and called customer service, who asked her if they fit a
certain description and then told her they were saw-toothed beetles.
Since the crackers were presumably cooked, that seems to indicate
that cooking the foods in question doesn't necessarily kill the eggs.

I think a book or article I read on eating insects claimed that the
average American consumes about 90 pounds of insects annually without
knowing it. Maybe the abundance of insect eggs is what really accounts
for the seemingly high figure of 90 pounds.

Before I invest too much effort in following up on the references cited
by this century old and not entirely appropriate book of Winton and Moeller,
is there some other reference work that would be better to use?

Also, am I correct in guessing that the scientific names (i)-(xix) are all
obsolete by now?