Never heard of them before a whatisit post which lead me down a rabbit hole. I get they are mostly harmless and people in the US probably have never seen/heard of them due to how we make vinegar filtered/pasturized. I also get that vinegar is basically sour wine that is left to ferment which requires yeast (an organism) but how do the vinegar eels get into the mother vinegar in the first place?
https://www.reddit.com/r/vinegar/comments/k5kc9d/eli5_how_do_vinegar_eels_get_into_vinegar/
they are already living on the fruit that will get fermented.
there are various ways they could have gotten there, but probiably just rode oon the foot of a flying insect.
Now my head is spinning because I soak my fresh fruit in a vinegar and water solution when I bring it home to kill parasites and bacteria. And now it sounds like in that process I'm creating a breeding zone for these things... I want to cry
A baking soda wash is more effective if you're trying to kill parasites and such. But TBF straight water is almost as effective (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03118)
dont worry, these are non harmful
Haha great find.
We went down the same rabbit hole for the same exact reason, thanks for the thread clearing up this question.
Silver spoon of creepy bug things couldn’t be ignored.
You came from there too? Lmao. I just googled them and found this post😂
Also here from the other post 🫡
Tagging on but no lies, I am also from that other post. OP of this post is the true hero.
Same... Great minds think alike! 😂
I think I'm following you down that same rabbit hole because I'm here because of "what is it "post and Google sent me right back to Reddit.. lol
Me too lmao
If you follow the Kombucha subreddit, you can occasionally find a post where some poor soul has brewed their booch to completion only to find masses of vinegar eels inside. Sort of sad really.
Fun fact, as a US resident I am quite familiar with vinegar eels because I raise them as food for baby fish
Anyway, imagine a buisness that produces vinegar. They are always making new batches of it, and if their sanitation isnt the best, vinegar eels could easily stay present in their equipment and vats. Nematodes are everywhere
For those who don't already know, vinegar "eels" aren't real eels, they're tiny nematode worms.
Their eggs just exist everywhere in natural environments. They hatch, grow up by eating bacteria, and then reproduce.
Their high tolerance for changes in pH allows them to feed on pH-altering vinegar-producing bacteria in rotting fruits. Any insect that is attracted to rotting fruit, will step in the pools of rotting fruit juice, picking up vinegar eel eggs on its feet, and spreading them throughout the environment.
So that is how they get into the mother vinegar, they hitch a ride on mobile insects such as fruit flies, and end up in the vinegar culture from bits of fruit and other biological material used in vinegar-making.
There’s a species of nematode that lives on moist beer mats in pubs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panagrellus_redivivus
There's a quote from Nathan Cobb in 1914, the first guy to study nematodes extensively, and it always stuck with me. Basically he found that nematodes were so common, so diverse, and so specific to their habitats, that their population distribution basically replicates the entire rest of the world. He said:
These are the nematode quotes I come to Reddit for.
That’s a fantastic quote!
It’s amazing how small the eggs have to be. Thanks for the info.
And i was hoping for an actual eel....
brb. Gotta go put my vinegar in the safe.