Lately, a TikTok video has gone viral. It was showing the bugs coming out of strawberries after washed with salt and water. The whole world was suddenly shocked that those tiny worms have been living inside our strawberries. The video went crazy on the internet. Everybody was sending it to each other. Every corner of social media, you were running across worms standing out of strawberries. It went like Nutella lid knife video and people started to wonder how come they never realized this before. Lots of users tried this salt water washing, and more TikTok videos followed. Now, people have a confusion and they are about to wash their strawberries with detergent.

But the question is: Should we really need to worry about it that much?

Apparently, there are some tiny creatures in the strawberries. They may have even created a living space with their families here. The reason why people disgust about it is not merely about hygiene, but more about values. It might not be appealing, but there are no known effects of consuming them with the fruit. I’m not saying “put some worms on your strawberry pudding as an extra flavor”; but based on the assumption that strawberries do contain those bugs inside, we have been eating them for years and we are fine.

How dangerous are the bugs?

Comparing to toxic chemicals, not at all. Strawberries contain at least 20 pesticides and have the highest level of pesticide contamination in produce. So if you come across a living being in your strawberry, feel lucky that this animal chose your fruit; it means the strawberry is natural and safe to eat. There are more dangerous things that we should be concerned about the food we eat. Also, we shouldn’t really worry about little worms, as we have very strange habits about eating animals.

How to wash strawberries?

You can wash them just like the way in the video if you prefer; soak them in the salt water and wait for the bugs to come out. Then record your video and share it with your friends.

If you want a more effective solution to clean your strawberries, try vinegar. Put water in a large bowl and add quarter amount vinegar into it. Place the strawberries in the bowl and soak for 20 minutes. Vinegar also helps you to get rid of chemicals; if the fruit contains any. So vinegar-water mix is a multipurpose cleaning option for berries.

Or you can just soak them in the regular water and wash couple of times until you get convinced they are clean enough. You might not want to know what species are living inside your fruit and that’s okay. It’s your strawberry, wash the way you want. In case you consume any worms, consider them as extra protein.

Strawberries are tasty anyway.