Throw out the rice and clean the container.

Also in St Paul... haven't figured out how to get rid of them, either, so I started storing everything they like in air-tight containers with a very good seal, or, preferably, in the freezer.

I've had those too - the only solution I've ever found is to basically get rid of anything you have that you suspect might have them in it - especially any containers of grains and flour to which they seem to be attracted. Then clean out your cupboards really well, wipe everything down, including any cans or anything you are keeping. Then when you buy new stuff, seal them up better so they can't get in - for instance flour usually comes in those paper bags - I usually put the whole bag in a larger plastic freezer bag or tupperware type container, or dump the contents into a sealable ceramic container. I don't know where they come from in the first place though, I would love a way to avoid them altogether! Good luck!

Don't cook it. I've dropped my cell phone in water twice this month and rice has saved the day. A few hours submerged helps to dry out the phone. Can't imagine these events will line up, but . . . there you have it.

lynnebee is right--a good purging and cleaning, followed by keeping things nice and sealed, will do the trick. I definitely wouldn't want to fog in this situation--even without the added consideration of the baby. After all, the poison would only work if it permeated where the bugs are hiding out--which is your food. Ick! You'd want to throw everything away after that anyway!

I know most modern Americans would consider this beyond the pale, but there's nothing intrinsically harmful about consuming a few bugs. It's certainly what our ancestors did, and people elsewhere in the world still do. I had some particularly expensive pasta that was only lightly infested, and I couldn't bear to throw it away. I kept it in the freezer until I was ready to cook it (so the bugs wouldn't spread to anything else), and then, well, in boiling water, the bugs float and pasta sinks. Just scoop them out! (I wouldn't have done this if there were a lot of bugs or it was a particulalry inexpensive commodity, but....)

We use the Lundberg brand rices and they recommend storing their products in airtight containers in the fridge. Hope this helps!

I agree with DrLBennett - there isn't really anything wrong with eating them in your food, especially before you realised you had them! I had this problem this summer in France and we just dumped all of the food that was "infected" (such a waste, but once I saw the maggots I actually couldn't face it anymore) and then we started storing all of our dry good (rice, flour, sugar, sesame seeds - they really like these for some reason) in glass canning jars. These are air tight and will prevent them from getting in. They will even eat through cork, so don't bother using procelain jars with those cork plugs. But once we did this they didn't come back!

I noticed this problem IN the grocer that I purchase my rice from!

I ALWAYS store rice in the freezer. Period. That kills any possibility of hatching and the little guys fluttering around in there. Plus, rice (especially brown) has oils in it that can go rancid.

As for anything else, make sure the containers are airtight. Plus, bayleaves do help. I store a few bay leaves in my pasta, barley & dog treat containers.

When you buy any grains put them in the freezer for 24 hours and you will not see anything hatching in them. This includes cereals and rice, pasta, lentils, any dry foods that will be in a pantry for awhile.

For future reference, when you purchase grains and put them in new containers, take a large bay leaf and put it in the container with your grains.

Bay leaves keep all kinds of things out of your dried goods.

Refrigerator.... for rice and all kinds of grains, pasta and flours....

I would throw everything that they're in OUT and then go to Ikea and get these super amazing jars (the 68oz ones). They're air tight and Ikea cheap AND they look super lined up on your counter...

I am originally from Southern California where weevils are a constant problem.

The cure: Place everything in either glass containers with tight lids (preferably) or in plastic (Tupperware, etc.) with tight lids. That way you're isolating each item (cereal, grains, beans, pasta, etc.) and avoiding new stuff contaminating stuff you already have.

I store Bisquik in the fridge because it stays fresh longer with its high shortening content. But other stuff can sit on the shelf. Just isolate it.

Wash the rice. Put rice into a bowl and add hot water. The bugs will float to the top. Continue until the water runs clear. Most asian cultures wash their rice.

DrLBennett is right there is nothing really wrong with eating bugs.

Dry ice can help. It sublimates to carbon dioxide, which can kill all sorts of insect larvae. This is what I do to "clean" a cupboard that has twice been infested with flour moths.
I buy rice in bulk (thanks, Costco), and store it in those Ikea glass jars with the sealed lids.

I've also knowingly cooked, and eaten, infested rice. A bit of extra protein once in a while is OK.

I put my flour in the fridge. I also put it in a freezer-safe zipper bag + a plastic container. It stays just fine. You can do the same with rice.

If there's just a few bugs, I agree with the idea of just washing the rice. The bugs will indeed float to the top, as hellcat said. I would draw the line, though, if there's a maggot infestation.

As others have said, dump it all and start over. Airtight containers will not stop the problem alone as the grain bugs are in the packaged food. You have to freeze or refrigerate grains/rice/pastas/etc to kill them and avoid an infestation. They also live in spices such as cumin and chili powder, those can go in the fridge or freezer too.

After a really nasty infestation a couple of years ago, I stopped storing all grains anywhere other than the freezer or fridge and problem was solved and has not occurred since.

Also, when you are cleaning out the pantry, remember to empty your vacuum after if you vacuum out the pantry, I did not and found the bugs in the carpet in my closet a year later where the vacuum was stored. It was fairly gross.

Also, vacuuming and a soapy water wash alone will not rid them from your cabinets, I used a bleach containing countertop cleaner in there after I had thought they were all gone and lo and behold tons started crawling out of the woodwork as I was spraying with the bleach - they apparently bore into the wood looking for food once their supply is cut off and can live off that. It took a good 3-4 months of bleaching and cleaning weekly until they were completely gone. Apparently they can live for a long time with no food source.

The eggs are nearly indetectable and can be brought home with a new bulk rice purchase. The little weevils escape and hide in your cupboard waiting for another batch of rice to lay their eggs in. New rice and generally all grains should get stored in the freezer for about two weeks; this will kill the eggs. If you keep getting re-infestation then buy only sealed bags of rice and store in an airtight container.

Refrigeration only will not kill or keep them out.

I do the bay leaf thing in my rice canisters - also my flour, sugar, pasta, cereal, etc. It works really well, although I did start by throwing everything out, cleaning the HECK out of the canisters, counters, entire kitchen, and then starting over.

You can also apply a very thin coating of veggie oil to the bottom edge of each container with your finger, which will keeps weevils (and ants!) from crawling from the counter up into the jar in the first place - they won't/can't cross the oil barrier. It leaves rings on your countertop, but, that's better than bugs, right? At least for a while until they give up trying.

Thanks, folks! (This is Maggie.)

I panicked a little because, living in an apartment building, I was paranoid that it would spread to the other units and create havoc and terribleness. I cleaned EVERYTHING... and since the purge, we've been weevil-free!

Here's the steps I took:
- Threw out all affected items. That included the Ground Zero bag of long-grain white rice, its layer of weevil poo on the bottom, and its crawly appearance. Pretty sure it was how they got in.
- Any items that may have been affected are currently in zip-lock bags in the freezer, undergoing a week of quarantine.
- All other grains, flours and dried beans have been moved from bags to Mason jars.
- Every affected surface has been wiped/vacuumed.
- All of our long-term storage cereals and breadmaking supplies have been moved into plastic bins with bay leaves in them.
- Set "Pantry Pest" traps on the top of my fridge and in the pantry.

The entire purge really took something like 4 hours, including the time I spent standing in the hardware store, just basking in the awesome that is a huge hardware store.

What I still should do:
- Wrap some bay leaves in tulle and toss them in all rice and flour receptacles.
- Take out the trash. (Just kidding!)
- Go through all quarantined items, confirm that they're safe, and return them to regular storage so we can have our relatively small freezer back.
- Get some chalkboard paint for the mason jars. I'd like to know what is in them all for sure. My roommate gets grains sometimes that I've never seen.

Thanks for the help, everyone! I hope that this helps other folks who have similar infestations.

---www.bymaggie.com---

I keep everything in Clamp-Lid Glass Jars.

http://www.bing.com/shopping/search?q=clamp%20lid%20glass%20jars&qpvt=clamp+lid+glass+jars

Never had a problem since.

I dust my grain cupboard with diatomaceous earth. It's a very fine silica powder that sticks to crawling insects/eggs and cuts up their moisture barrier so they soon suffocate or dry out. I like this because it's safe for people and pets (just avoid breathing it in, and make sure you get food grade DE).

I am about to faint.

I put the rice in the rice cooker and skim them off the top of the water, sometimes I'm bothered by this but i still eat the odd few. I ate fried bugs and flies in Thailand so how bad can this be ?

If you're buying food from the bulk section, sometimes it's the store that has the infestation. It's not always about them getting into the food, sometimes they are already in there. Clean out all cupboards and check everything, dump anything that looks contaminated, seal things in jars with lids, and keep a close eye out for lingerers.

I agree with enan.

Any grain-based item (rice, flour, etc.) that I buy goes into the freezer for about a week. Then it goes into an IKEA glass mason-jar type container. No problems!

BAY LEAVES. Lots of 'em. I tape them to flour bags (those pests chew right through), have several in cups and taped to the walls and inside the doors of the cupboards. Those little sticky feramone catchers work well in conjunction. I stopped a minor infestation at my mother's house this way. Going on two years now and they've stayed away.

Hasn't this happened to everyone at one point? Throw stuff out and clean up the cupboard. Pretty simple, really.

Remember to freeze everything for at least 24 hours BEFORE you throw it out! Otherwise the little critters will keep breeding and infest other people's homes.

I have the same problem in St. Louis. They get in ANY starchy thing I keep in the pantry, but mostly seem to love dried pasta and flour. I've started keeping flour in double-layered freezer/Ziploc bags and dried pasta, rice, lentils, etc. in the fridge.

Does anyone know if you can keep flour in the fridge without it ruining, I don't know, gluten content or something?

When storing the rice or other foodgrains in a container, sprinkle some boric acid powder and mix it with the rice.

The powder will keep away the weevils and can easily be washed off before cooking.

I have no idea how to handle them, but I did just throw up a little upon reading the statement "They have little maggot babies in our rice."

Another reason to store all grains, flour, etc. in the freezer: it stays MUCH fresher.

Wholeheartedly support fridge for all grains. I keep rice and flour in there, along with oats when we have them.

The weevil eggs come in the grains already, so the key is killing them and/or not getting them to hatch.

don't panic. it's just weevils. you're bigger than them. throw out the infested stuff, clean the containers. go on with your life.

i hate to say so, but even the cleanest households face weevils. quite often, you already buy them in the packet of rice, flour etc... nice!

I had them and I threw out everything I knew of that had them in it. I took everything out of the effected cupboard and cleaned it out with bleach and water daily until I didn't see them anywhere in the cupboard anymore. It took 3-4 days but they were finally gone and I have only found 1 or 2 since in random places, but not in food.

I came across this article while searching for info on rice cookers & stopped to learn more about this pesty problem. And WOW, was I glad I did! I am an extreme rice & pasta fan & I always have enough on hand for those emergency block party. After reading these posts,I'm this close to throwing everything out. Because of the high prices of food products these days,I decided against that. Instead, I choose to do two things at once. I did alittle more research on the topic & tomorrow I will be storing all my dried grains/pastas in mason jars. I posted the link for a VERY helpful outline list for storing dried goods below. Hope it helps.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2318070_package-grains-longterm-storage.html

At least we all agree on ONE thing: throw the bums out! I threw all my rice in the trash, and put other un-infested rice in empty spaghetti jars and put them in the refrigerator. After this, I will look for little black things in all my grains. Thanks to all weevil-haters for helping me.

Stuff like putting bug traps to stop them from coming back is ignoring the fact that they don't come from external sources in your home they already exist in the food you brought home from the store.

Rice most often but also other grains and "grass" seed grains like wheat or oats etc. I usually just sift through and pick them out and this involves a two step process - first sift through a handful of grain at a time to remove bugs. Second put the rice in water and bugs and other things like eggs will float if you stir the water around so pour the top water off and add more water until you feel confident you got the remaining bugs out.

Air tight containers only help if you are positive they are already rice bug FREE and rice bug egg free products which MOST are not as received from the store. Freezing may help but this can be a real hassle. Adding CO2 gas can reduce the living bugs and so can adding a variety of herbs which simply makes your food more unpleasant to the bugs to live there so they will crawl around and MOVE around to investigate your other foods!

So plan of action most likely to do the most good. Buy small amounts of grains. Store them air tight freeze for a few days if possible. Add CO2 gas or dry ice to the grains before sealing them up. If you find bugs don't panic and don't throw the grains away unless (despite having eaten rice bugs thousands of times in their life without knowing it already) you are still a squeemish type who doesn't care about wasting perfectly good food otherwise simply clean them out before cooking/grinding otherwise using your grains.

Make sure not to buy the lose fitting jars from IKEA. The one that therms pointed works, just not all of the jars from ikea works. Weevils just crawl in.

Sorry to dissapoint everyone, but weevils are in everything. You just need to freeze it as soon as you get it. Better yet poor all of the rice first into a bowl and look for the little shits. Then freeze it. Flowers you can simply sift. You can also get some oxygen absorbers and use as directed (you can find them at amazon). I am also thinking of getting a no. 10 canner to really seal it but they can be expensive unless you can go in with a few friends to get one. You can also get some food grade buckets with good lids. I get my buckets from a local resturant that has too many and are happy to part with them. Just get to know the owner. I also thought about using a black light to identify them. I read on another post that they put dried out chile peppers in with their rice.

Great idea!

needs to be in the freezer. The fridge will not work.

Here's what I've discovered. Rice Weevils are in almost every bag of rice you purchase anywhere. This is what my mom used to do. She would spread out the rice on a clean pan and have it out in the sun on a warm, sunny day for a couple hours. The exposure of rice to the sun and UV let it warms up and the bugs would crawl out and leave the rice. You just have to make sure all every single grain of rice is exposed to the sun.

Also, freezing your grains below -17.7 deg C or 0 deg F for more than three days kills them. 24 hrs aren't long enough.