It happens to us all. You getting ready to, or already enjoying a delicious meal and then BOOM – A fly lands on your tasty grub. Gross right? Yes, it is actually very gross.
The truth of the matter is that a fly landing on your food doesn’t contaminate your food…it does something much nastier.
Flies have no teeth, so they eat by sucking fluids through their nose. When they land on solid food they vomit their saliva on it to liquefy it, so they can drink it.
As we know, flies eat everything and anything, so when they regurgitate, they’re introducing harmful bacteria from gross things like feces and rotten meat to your food.
“House flies are the movers of any disgusting pathogenic microorganism you can think of,” Jeff Scott, an entomologist at Cornell University, told the Daily Mail. “Anything that comes out of an animal, such as bacteria and viruses, house flies can take from that waste and deposit on your sandwich.”
These annoying little pests can transmit over 100 different diseases and parasites, including Salmonella, tuberculosis, and cholera.
All of this is definitely pretty gross right? Well there is more.
In addition to throwing up nastiness on your food, flies also drop some poops and can even lay eggs in your food! YUM!
Typically this only occurs when you leave food out for a day or so, but it can and does happen often.
According to the results of a study at Penn State Eberly College of Science, if you want some peace of mind, you should probably chuck your food if a fly lands on it.
If you quickly shew a fly away there is probably a low chance that it had the time to puke up its insides onto your food. However, their nasty little legs can still hold bacteria that you probably don’t want to eat!
