“I’ve recycled coffee grounds for years,” writes Mikey about the white worm-like creature pictured below. “I’ve just started seeing the worms or larvae in the past couple of weeks, we live in northern CA, near Auburn. The coffee is Folgers and Don Francesco (I think). Anyway, the pictures I’m sending are from this morning. The grounds were dumped in the bucket last night and, well, you can see. Any thoughts? Are we consuming bugs in our coffee?” Firstly, we just want to sympathize with Mikey: we can’t imagine how unnerving it must be to find a worm in your coffee one day. Secondly, we do have thoughts on this. We think Mikey found a pantry moth caterpillar in his coffee grounds.

Pantry moths are common household pests. They typically invade the kitchen, or pantry, and lay eggs in dry food goods like grains, cereals, pasta, pet food, and, yes, coffee grounds. The reason they lay their eggs on these types of foods is because these are the types of foods that their caterpillars eat. Once hatched, the caterpillars will begin chowing down on the product, leaving faecal pellets and dead skin behind which render the food inedible: not because they necessarily pose a health threat, but because most people prefer not eating caterpillar poop.

Although we only see one caterpillar in the photo, Mikey does specify that multiple larvae were found. With that in mind, we think he might be experiencing an infestation. The best way to combat a pantry moth infestation is by elimination and prevention. To eliminate the infestation, find any infested foods and throw them out. Now, it is vital that they are thrown out in outdoor bins, not in the trash can inside one’s home: the infestation will just continue that way. To prevent future infestations, keeping dried goods in airtight containers, rather than the packaging they come in, will prevent moths from getting inside the containers and laying eggs.

To conclude, we think that the little white, worm-like creatures Mikey has been finding in his coffee grounds are pantry moth caterpillars. It is worth checking all the other dried foods he has for more caterpillars, but we hope that it has been isolated to the coffee grounds for now, as that would make things much easier. We hope this helps, and we wish Mikey the very best!

Summary

Article Name

White Larva Found in Coffee Grounds is a Pantry Moth Caterpillar

Description

"I've recycled coffee grounds for years," writes Mikey about the white worm-like creature pictured below. "I've just started seeing the worms or larvae in the past couple of weeks, we live in northern CA, near Auburn. The coffee is Folgers and Don Francesco (I think). Anyway, the pictures I'm sending are from this morning. The grounds were dumped in the bucket last night and, well, you can see. Any thoughts? Are we consuming bugs in our coffee?" Firstly, we just want to sympathize with Mikey: we can't imagine how unnerving it must be to find a worm in your coffee one day. Secondly, we do have thoughts on this. We think Mikey found a pantry moth caterpillar in his coffee grounds.

Author

Worm Researcher Anton