Ants in the M&M's

[shatto]

Problem: Ants in the M&M's.

I was mixing M&M's, from three opened 3lb. bags together in a bowl intending to pour them back into the bags, when I discovered that one bag had been infested with ants. They ate the outer coating down to the chocolate.

Okay, now we know that the self-sealing bag doesn't keep out ants. But, how do I remove the ants, now mixed into the entire bowl? And, no, I don't have the time to do it one at a time.

[JanGeo]

I would say a vacuum cleaner which will pick up the M&Ms or the ants but the probably better way would be to slide the M&Ms down a long clean white towel and the ant will stick to the towel and the M&Ms should slide to the other end without them hitching a ride - cooling them off should make the ants less "sticky" like in the freezer.

[bowtieguy]

WAIT, DON'T SEPARATE the ants. leave them in the bags w/ the candy. call it "chocolate uncovered ants" and serve.

[bobc455]

After you figure out how to get rid of the ants, don't forget to dispose of the ant poop that was also inevitably left on the M&Ms...

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

Originally Posted by bowtieguy

WAIT, DON'T SEPARATE the ants. leave them in the bags w/ the candy. call it "chocolate uncovered ants" and serve.

And they wiggle when you swallow them!

In reality, I'd just ****-can the whole bunch and start over...

[FrugalFloyd]

Ditto. As an ex-FDA man, my advice is "when in doubt, throw it out." If I found those conditions in a firm, I'd sample it for seizure on the basis of it being adulterated (contaminated with filth, namely ants, ant spittle, ant scent markers, and ant feces). When faced with the prospect of seizure, most companies voluntarily destroyed the adulterated food.

What you do in your own home is your own business, but for $5 or whatever the candy is worth, I'd toss it, myself.

[shatto]

Finally, it occurred to me that I had dumped two bags, one the standard M&M Peanut and one M&M Dark Chocolate Peanut, into a large cooking pot, then I added the 1/3 bag of ant covered M&M Peanut.

So I used a saucer to scoop out about half of the M&M's and discarded them. On the lawn. Christmas colored lawn.

I placed the rest on a cookie sheet and used a hair dryer to blow all the ant bodies and a few of the M&M's out.

Someone had said that the ants leave identifying pheromones to attract others to a food source. The seed was planted and I thought I was tasting it so I made my lawn even more festive looking.



I'm going to compile some of the replies to my post and send them to the M&M folks, for their amusement.

Speaking of amusement. Thank all of you.

[theholycow]

Remind me not to eat candy at your house.

[shatto]

You're invited....but, alas, you are a continent away.

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

Ants....I've had ants....I hate ants...

Now that your front lawn is much more festive, I'd happily eat candy at your house...but I don't need the calories!