Warning if storing nutritional yeast...

[ElspethPostlethwaite]

So Christmas eve I was preparing a vegan cauliflower cheese for DS. Grabbed the nutritional yeast out of the pantry, opened the tub without looking inside and added a spoonful to the cheese sauce.

Was stirring the sauce and noticed tiny black specs - they were weevils! 😫Looked at the open tub and thousands of the little critters were crawling out all over the worktop. Tub and cheese sauce went straight in the outside bin and bleached the worktop (then had a large gin and tonic to recover😏

The yeast wasn't out of date was OK until April 2023 and was in airtight tub...

Thanks for the info. Going to chuck.mine now.

Weevils can get into anything in your cupboards that's dried food - flour etc.

I always check anything dried like that before cooking with it and I keep flour in the freezer which stops them living in it.

It won't be a nutritional yeast issue, more a 'your cupboard' problem. Honestly happens to most people at some point.

It's very common in flour too, just as @Dogsgottabone says. They're in there at point of manufacture and packaging in some cases.

Quite harmless though, you've probably consumed them without realising it.

Meh, humans have been eaten weevils since before the dawn of history. Not pleasant but they won’t hurt you.
You need to check everything in your stored product cupboard now and make sure they haven’t got out.

They hide in hinges and holes in cupboards.
They must be thoroughly cleaned.
Nothing to do with yeast.
We had an infestation in our hoover.

Yeah they're everywhere. Most vegans eat loads of insects, just like everyone else.

I'd check all packets of dried goods that were stored in the same cupboard, and spray the cupboard. If there were that many, it's likely they are also in the flour/pasta/biscuits etc

We got them once, we think they got into the kitchen in a pack of bird seed stored under the kitchen sink, as it was absolutely crawling with them but I found them in a pack of bread mix in a cupboard some way away.

Thanks for the warning!

Incidentally, is it just me who reads "weevils" in the voice of Jim from Friday Night Dinner??

Thanks for the replies. Yes I've cleaned out the pantry and tried to get into all the corners/hinges/nooks and crannies. I already store flour in airtight containers as had them before in flour but then it was just a few. This nutritional yeast was absolutely infested with them urrggh

@RambamThankyouMam
I get sea shanties in my head 'weevely bread' etc