I have some serious news to share with you. I consider this to be highly disturbing and it was quite traumatic for our family. Please know that I am not sharing this information to cause panic or to trouble personal fears that may already exist in any of your hearts. Nor am I sharing this information to begin a discussion on elitest grocery stores or the organic movement. I simply share it in order to inform you of this event so that it can help you and those you know from experiencing the same.
On Tuesday I found a nest of spider eggs sandwiched between two of the bananas that I pulled out of my refrigerator drawer. They looked strangely familiar to the pictures of similar occurrences that I saw weeks ago from an ABC news story from England. After contacting Josh Cain, our local pest control company, and the store where I bought the produce it was 90% confirmed that they were indeed from the Brazilian Wandering Spider. This spider has several different species, one of which is the Banana Spider, the most venomous spider in the world.
I put the bananas in a ziploc bag and was cautioned to put them back into the refrigerator in order to keep them dormant if they were still living. I know that most people do not place their produce in their refrigerator like I do, but praise be to our God that I did because that is the ONLY thing that kept these baby spiders from fully hatching. Some had already escaped from the nest and were on other bananas.
Our pest control company took the bananas to confirm even further, but if they cannot they will be sending them to Clemson University.
We contacted several local news agencies for the purpose of informing the public that this isn’t just a foreign problem anymore. It is now OUR problem! However and unfortunately, none of them saw this as news worthy. So we are taking the responsibility on for ourselves.
Please check check check check your produce before you bag it, buy it, and bring it home! CHECK CHECK CHECK! Tell others to check.
My comfort used to be that these were only the problems of distant countries. However, this is not true. Do not be afraid, just be informed!
much love to you all. Remember that our God is sovereign and nothing is outside of His authority or control! Just check your produce.