I sure am glad that never happened to me! Some form of pasta (not often macaroni or spaghetti, but noodles or Italian shapes) make a regular appearance in our meals as I rotate the starch portion.

But your story reminds of something that happened when I was a kid. At home we ate oatmeal for breakfast, or -if the hens were laying well- eggs in some form. I remember having breakfast at a friend's house and being offered corn flakes. What a treat! Then her mom poured them into a bowl and a large cockroach crawled out. I haven't been able to look at any flake-cereal since then, much less try to eat it.

Oh to be able to go to the local store,hand the list to someone and have them get it all for me,without of course paying extra for that luxury. I don't blame you for not wanting to eat pasta after that. Somethings can never be erased from your mind. I opened up a 40 pound bag of birdseed once and there was a dead dried up rat in there. I still always check for a rodent whenever I scoop out seed

After moving south, where it hardly ever gets cold enough to kill any creepy, crawly critter, we've learned to seal up any dry staples in air-tight containers. If you don't you're going to have something nasty crawl out of the box sooner rather than later.

The worst that I remember, however, happened to my ex-MIL who lived in Indiana. She opened the bread drawer one morning & wondered why there were crumbs all over the place. she pulled our the package with the loaf of bread & found that something had eaten right through the loaf & out through the plastic bag. At the back of the drawer a very live mouse was contentedly asleep. It didn't stop her from eating bread, but it did make her check each bag when she was buying bread at the store.

LOLOL. Boy, what a thread! I have an iron gut, and I can't think of too many experiences where it turned me off on food, but my husband the butcher (who'd have thunk?) is just the opposite. If anything offends him in the food catagory, then you may as well throw it off the menu forever.

I have, for years, put dry staples like flour products in the freezer first to kill pantry moth larvae and then in an airtight container. Those little pests often just come in products you buy, even when they are sealed. Living rural, I have become very diligent in "demousing" my house because the field mouse invasion comes twice a year with great regularity. Bleach is your friend, lol. So are housecats!

The weirdest wildlife in my kitchen? Beat this, I dare you. A baby chimney swift in my linen drawer. They must've fallen from their nest in the kitchen fireplace, worked their way through some bad brickwork and into the cabinet in the inglenook. About a hundred tiny frog or toads one time by the back door. I can only think they hatched in water somewhere near the foundation of the house and made their entrance into my kitchen through the walls. There were so many of them, I had to carefully brush them up into dustpans to release them. Snakes. Ring neck, and rat snakes. One baby I found was only inches long and I mistook him for an earthworm. I place it tenderly outside in my fern garden. The occasional bat and God knows how they get in. Several shrews. Brown thrashers. And the most bizarre, a duck in the living room hearth. LOL.

I once bought an Almond Joy after eating a couple bites I noticed the coconut was moving, filled with little white worms. It took me many years to eat coconut.

Calliope ~ Un-dangle us, please. How did the duck get in the hearth? On the hearth?

Came down through the chimney, I guess. It used to be a regular routine when we saw the dog laying in front of the glass fireplace screen with his ears perked up, to go rescue whatever was behind it , who fell or flew down and couldn't go back up. That chimney has now been capped off.

After reading this thread I may never eat Pasta again either. Yuck!!!!

The grossest food related? Well, I sometimes churn my own butter and it has a very rich smell if one lets the milk set a bit and warm first. I put a pound of it on a dish and set a glass cloche over it. Needless to say, it gets used up quickly on bread with jam.

One morning, it looked as if somebody had taken a serrated steak knife to it, instead of the little smooth butter knives I keep nearby. I grumbled, and then used the gnarled butter myself on my toast so the block would be smooth and neat again.

Later that day, somebody used the butter again and left the glass cloche off and there is the big Tomcat on the counter, licking the slab of butter. Oh poop, says I, going over to dump it in the trash and notice that the indentations of a cat's tongue look exactly like somebody had used a serrated knife. blech.

That exact same thing happened at my friend's house. His mom thought that the kids were swiping a finger through the butter she left on the table. Until she found the cat happily licking a finger-sized furrow in the top of it. LOL!

Acorn, you take the prize on gross. That's just AWFUL!!!!! I may not eat coconut for a while.

I agree, Acorn wins the prize, and IMO it's a dubious honor.