Thrips in Strawberries: Serious Concern, or Hyperbole?

If you have a short attention span, skip to the end of this post for the video that illustrates the problem.

Whenever insect problems come up, there are those who say that this is just extremist ignorant hysteria; that the alleged insects aren't there at all, or that they are so small as to be halachically irrelevant.

The irony of this is that often, these debates do, indeed, expose ignorance and hysteria, but this is often on the part of the burcherers. (Burcherin: n;, Yiddish. Boor'-tche-rin. Ignorant grousing by people who believe today what they believed yesterday, and that's that, often associated with boorishness.)

I, too, once fell victim to this attitude. I know exactly what aphids look like, having seen them in all colors and under all different light situations. When, twenty five years ago, word spread that fresh broccoli tended to be infested with aphids, I went to the store and bought a bunch of fresh broccoli. I meticulously checked it and found nothing. I decided that the reports were just the result of the overheated imagination of some urban frummies who didn't know what they were talking about, and I tossed the picked-over broccoli into the garbage. I then glanced down and saw twenty or thirty aphids, precisely the color and the size of the individual broccoli florets, crawling down my shirt.

I used to enjoy Mulberries. But I later learned that if you breathe on them, the warmth and CO2 will brings hosts of thrips out. The mulberries, so clean and quiet, suddenly look like a kicked-over anthill. Unfortunately, the problem is present in any aggregate fruit which comprise drupelets-- e.g., raspberries. And Wild Black Cherries-- not the kind you get in the store, the originals; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cherry . I once made a drink out of the cherries from a tree near my yeshiva. After a night in the refrigerator, I was treated to the sight of an entire layer of fruit maggots at the top of the pitcher. Bug juice indeed. Thrips, in particular, have recently developed real resistance to insecticides... Ahh, for the good old days of DDT....

And dried fruit: did you know that Kashrus organizations deal with insects in dried fruit like the US military deals with gays? DADT. The hechsher only tells you that no triefeh ingredients were mixed into the fruit. But, did fruit flies lay eggs on them while they were drying? Are there larder beetles? Or merchant beetles? Or date stone beetles? When my mother insisted on checking the inside of dates before eating them, I thought this was excessive. Until she showed me a beetle scurrying off of the pit. (I am told, however, that domestic pitted dates do not require examination.)

As to the argument 'but we've been eating strawberries for millennia, and if they were kosher for our grandparents, they're kosher for us," this is indeed a valid point. The Ribbono Shel Olam wouldn't have allowed wholesale achilas davar ha'asur; I heard this point from Rav Rudderman when the teshuvos about Tuna were printed. However, the thrip problem happens to be of recent origin, and simply was not a factor in the past. Some thrips were confined to Asia but migrated westward in recent years-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scirtothrips_dorsalis. Some were limited to specific areas within North America but have spread to the entire continent and to Europe in recent years-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankliniella_occidentalis. And in many cases, what was, in the past, an occasional problem, has become epidemic, and, perhaps, endemic-- http://www.entomology.umn.edu/cues/Inter/inmine/Thripm.html.

And there is the svara of "lo nitna torah le'malachei hashareis." Let's say that thrips always existed, and our ancestors simply were unaware of them. For them, then, they were halachicly irrelevant, and no more assur than the protists that we eat, drink, and inhale. Now, however, that these thrips have been publicized, and, after simple instruction in method, can be seen, they become assur. Yoseif da'as, yoseif mach'ov.

If you are concerned about healthy foods becoming unavailable, remember two things:
First, there's the Shibuta Rule (Chulin 109b): there are always kosher alternatives available. But you have to do the research. For example, broccoli seed sprouts are far more beneficial than broccoli itself http://www.psa-rising.com/eatingwell/broccoli.htm. You just have to buy them and sprout them yourself. Second, nobody complained when the salmonella scare made plum tomatoes unavailable for a month. You deal with reality and move on.

Here is an excellent video that illustrates the problem with strawberries. http://www.veoh.com/videos/v15037797bzWKgQFT