Strawberries may appear to be a healthy food, but the fruit may be infested with insects. Fruit lovers are freaked out by a shocking video on social media that shows the delicious red fruit under a microscope infested with tiny creatures.
The one-minute-long clip was shared by Fred DiBiase on X (formerly Twitter). The video begins with a person examining a strawberry under a microscope. Then, a close-up shows small insects crawling on top of the red fruit. It also shows a few worms emerging from within the fruit.
"Let's look at a strawberry under a telescope," reads the caption of the clip. Since being shared, it has amassed over 10 million views and 14,000 likes on the microblogging platform.
"It's well known strawberries have bugs, soak them in water with either vinegar or baking soda or salt for 20+ minutes," said a user.
"Fruits bugs have protein," commented a user.
A third added, "I've eaten so many worms..."
"OMG I'm never eating unwashed fruit again!!" remarked a person.
A similar video was shared on social media in 2023, as per the New York Post. "Are you having a good day today? I'm sorry for ruining it by posting this video of a strawberry under a microscope," reads the caption to the clip, which had 2.9 million views on the platform. The video, set to an eerie soundtrack, shows a scientist chopping off a slice of strawberry and inspecting it under a microscope. The camera then switches to a magnifier's-eye view, revealing minute multicoloured mite-like creatures scuttling about on the surface.
As per the outlet, "the strawberry colonizer is actually a spotted wing drosophila, a very tiny" invasive fruit fly that likes to lay its eggs under the skin of strawberries and other berries. These become larvae and crawl out of the skin like a creepy, crawly pinata."
According to Iowa entomologist Don Lewis, "the larvae will be one-fiftieth of an inch - not even visible to the naked eye." According to him, the fruit in grocery stores is unlikely to contain them even if we could find them, as refrigeration kills them.
Most notably, there is no proof that eating these tiny creatures, which are an inevitable component of eating food cultivated in a field, is dangerous. The reality is that most fruits, stored grains, they have some level of insect infestation that is impossible to get rid of," Sriyanka Lahiri, an entomologist at the University of Florida, told USA TODAY in 2020.
