How Many Insect Parts Do the Feds Allow in Your Michigan Meal?

Some things are better off not being shared. A cold quickly comes to mind, along with baseless claims meant to keep people awake and paranoid.

Related: Real Michigan Horrors: 5 Critters That Could Crawl Out of Your Toilet

One such claim that spreads faster than pink-eye at a daycare, has to do with dining on spiders while we sleep. The most common form of the myth is that you unknowingly swallow an average of four live spiders in your sleep each year.

The Truth About How Many Spiders, or Spider Parts, You Consume in Michigan

I've heard different theories on how the little 8-legged arachnids get in your system, from just crawling right in your open mouth to crawling up your nose and then making their way down your throat.

There is, of course, no truth to this myth at all. Here's the lowdown from How Stuff Works:

...in reality, the odds of swallowing even a single spider over your entire lifetime are so low that they're virtually zero. And it's extremely unlikely a spider would even approach a sleeping human, much less crawl into their open mouth and wait to die.

Despite science and facts, 4 out of 10 people still believe they swallow spiders while they sleep. The truth is you more than likely have consumed a spider or, parts of spiders, more than once...this year...while awake!

You see the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows for a certain amount of 'foreign substances' in the foods we consume daily. Do you think that's a stretch?

Ground cinnamon, for example, can contain up to an average of 400 insect fragments per 50 grams.

LiveScience.com

Picking your teeth yet? Cinnamon isn't alone either, spices seem to have an awful lot of extras not listed on the ingredients:

Insect body parts are also allowed in both crushed and ground oregano. Crushed oregano can contain up to an average of 300 insect fragments per 10 grams. If you go for ground oregano, however, you can find up to an average of 1,250 insect fragments per 10 grams

LiveScience.com

So, yeah. You might not be unknowingly consuming spiders in your sleep but, you're enjoying at least part of one or a few whenever you sip on that Cinnamon Chai Latte or wrap some noodles around a fork in a big bowl of spaghetti.

Think you'd notice if there were spiders in your cereal? There 5 spiders in the above bowl. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see if you found them all.

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