Opinion: Bug Parts in Baby Formula -- What's the Big Deal?

(Sept. 24) -- While minding my business this Friday, I got an automated call from Costco informing me that the Similac I purchased about a month ago was being recalled. Apparently Abbott Laboratories discovered a few bugs in one of its production facilities and so is recalling oodles of containers of its formula as a precautionary measure.

At first I wasn't sure what to think. I've mostly breastfed my baby (who just turned 1), but we use formula on occasion. Certainly, folks on Twitter were a bit hysterical about the recall, throwing around tweets like "they are trying to poison babies now" and others screaming that if you use Similac you should "STOP IMMEDIATELY!!!"

But after I thought about it, I realized how silly it is to get bugged out about a few potential bug parts.

For starters, while bug parts sound gross, there are actually a lot of them in our food. The Food and Drug Administration even publishes a Defect Levels Handbook listing acceptable levels of bug and rodent parts. Among them:

Chocolate can contain up to 60 insect fragments per 100 grams, and as long as you test six 100-gram samples of chocolate, and average less than one rodent hair per sample (and no more than three in any one sample), you're doing just fine.
Cinnamon can have up to 11 rodent hairs per 50 grams.
Canned asparagus is allowed a certain level of beetle eggs.
Fig paste can have up to 13 insect heads per 100 grams.

This isn't a matter of FDA regulators being asleep at the wheel. It's just that it's impossible, in our world of abundant life forms, to share none of our food with these creatures, as anyone who has a garden knows.

Plus, babies put plenty of gross things in their mouths all the time and do just fine.

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Abbott notes that the bug parts may cause intestinal distress. I imagine that the rocks and bark I caught my baby stuffing in his mouth in the park the other day could do the same thing (maybe there were bugs in there too!). Back when I was baby-sitting, one mother informed me ruefully that her child had recently found, and eaten, dog poop.

But as I read in October's Parenting magazine, even most disgusting stuff "doesn't pose a health risk unless consumed in large quantities."

Indeed, an expert cited in the story recalled the case of a child breaking a cremation urn and eating the ashes inside. All she needed was a cup of water.

So I'm not too worried about a few bugs in the formula. Indeed, I just looked over at my baby right now and noticed he'd stuck a pen from the bottom of my purse in his mouth. The germs on that are probably more gross than anything in the Similac.