Ashley Erhart gags when she hears the facts. Insect fragments, maggots, mold, rodent hair, beetle eggs.

“That is the grossest thing!” she said.

The SMU freshman has just learned about the Food and Drug Administration’s

Food Action Defect Levels, a list of what’s allowed to go in our food. According to the FDA, the bits of bug, the miniscule maggots and the residue of rodent excreta are all health-friendly and pose no concerns.

In January the peanut butter salmonella outbreak made headlines across the nation. Recently, the FDA investigated The Peanut Corporation of America, the Georgia-based company suspected as the source of the scare. The company is accused of shipping the peanut butter to 43 states.

Almost 600 illnesses, including eight deaths, have been linked to the company. In addition to the bacteria, the agency found mold and roaches at the plant.

Mold and roaches may be a surprise, but what about insect fragments and rodent hairs? The Food Action Defect Levels state that peanut butter contains 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams, and an average of one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams. It can also contain grit.

The FDA defines the “defects” as a minor issue.

Dr. Jo Ann Carson, Ph.D. and professor of clinical nutrition at UT Southwestern, thinks that the list is not a big deal.

“To make food completely absent in any of these things is not a practical issue,” she said.

Erhart thinks that salmonella pales in comparison to the other things that peanut butter contains.

“Knowing about rodent hairs is by far the worst,” Erhart said. “I’d rather risk salmonella!”

Carson said that there has always been a small amount of bugs, eggs, hair, grit and rot in our food. The more something is processed or handled, the greater the chance that something that’s not supposed to be there gets in.

Carson gave an example of grinding meat. No matter how much you clean out the grinder, residue remains. This means that traces of beef residue are probably in ground turkey if the meats were ground in the same grinder.

Erhart said that she didn’t think it was practical for the levels to be any lower. Despite the hair and maggots in her food, she still intends to eat everything she always has.

That includes tomato pizza paste, which averages 15 or more fly eggs and one or more maggots per 100 grams.

Freshman Laura Vetrano said that it was strange to think about the disgusting stuff in her food, but since the FDA says that the additions are not hazardous, it doesn’t bother her.

Freshman Kathryn Vinod said that it was interesting to discover the truth about her macaroni and cheese. Macaroni and other noodle products average about 225 insect fragments or more per 225 grams.

But like Vetrano, Vinod doesn’t plan on changing anything in her diet.

If you ever use pepper to spice your meals, that’s an average of 1 mg. or more of mammalian excreta per pound. And if you ever wash your meal down with a cold beer, that’s 2,500 aphids per 10 grams of hops.

Freshman Kellie Teague said that she will try not to think about maggots, mold or mammalian excreta when she eats.

“It’s gross, but not that harmful,” she said.

Recently, three students eating lunch at the cafeteria were approached with the defect levels. Freshman Archit Agarwal’s eyes grew wide as he heard the list.

“It’s something you are not aware of,” he said.

Agarwal thinks that he might change a few things in his diet. He said that he is considering cutting out mushrooms, which have an average of 20 or more maggots of any size per 100 grams.

His friends, Ayush Gupta and Shubh Khetan, said that the FDA list is a little disgusting, but they don’t think it’s a big deal.

“I don’t care what’s in it,” Khetan said of her food.

The Vegetarian Legal Action Network does care about what goes in food. It is especially concerned with strawberry yogurt and other foods tinged with carmine, red food coloring. According to the FDA, carmine is made from dried, ground bugs. The bugs eat red berries, which accumulate in the females’ stomachs and in un-hatched larvae … hence the red color.

Currently, food labels just read “artificial color,” or “color added” when the dye is used. The Network petitioned for the FDA to disclose that bugs are involved in making carmine.

The requirement goes into effect in 2010.

Carson said that people tend to get overly concerned about additives in their diet. She cites the example of hormones in milk. When you compare the amount of hormones in milk to the amount of hormones in our body, it’s miniscule.

“To have a practical food supply, you need some level of tolerance,” she said.