Wheat Gone Bad

Last year, in July, I bought 50 lbs of wheat. I have since been trying to use it. I'm sure I could've used it faster but I just was lazy and didn't want to grind it or do whatever else needed to be done.
This resulted in the wheat lasting a year.

Anyhow, I planned on using my wheat fast and did not pack it for longer term storage. Normally I will at least put things in the mylar bags with oxygen absorbers so they will be somewhat protected. For this wheat I put most of it in a large storage container and the remainder in #10 cans. The #10 cans are ones that have been used before for other items and that is the wheat I use first.

A few days ago I decided to grind up the wheat for an experiment I was doing and opened up the #10 can of wheat. I don't remember when I put it in there, it was either a long time ago or not that long ago. Anyhow, I put my hand in the stuff so I could take a picture for the blog.



I'm glad I did. It allowed me to get a good look at the wheat and there were tiny little bugs crawling around all over the place. Hundreds of them! They were so hard to see though that I wouldn't have noticed unless I had done what I did. This created a feeling of loss and stupidity for me. I should've known better. How could I let this happen? I went immediately into my pantry and checked every #10 can for bugs. It turned out that was the only #10 can of wheat I had and there was no bug moving to other containers. I thought that perhaps it had to do with the fact that I had bought the wheat a year ago. That however was not the case. The wheat I kept in the large storage container was completely bug-free. So, what was the cause of my trouble?

There were a few things that could've happened, I decided. One, the lid wasn't on all the way, or two, something else happened. But what? I set the container of wheat aside. Took a few pictures and tried to take a video of the bugs moving so I could post it here. The videos didn't work. The picture did.



See those tiny little buggers?

Anyhow, I didn't know what to do with the stuff and I felt like my hands had become contaminated. I was afraid to touch anything in fear that those little monsters were hiding in me waiting to jump off into some unsuspecting place. I did manage to pour everything in a garbage bag and put it inside another garbage bag. (I'm not going to mess around with food monsters). When I emptied the #10 can I discovered something not normal when one comes to the end of can of wheat.



My guess is that I washed the #10 can out and did not wait long enough for it to become dry, even if it appeared dried, before putting in some wheat. This created a nice moisture environment for those bugs to thrive. This is all theory though and I have no proof of what really went wrong, but I'll be careful, I hope, next time.