What would you do if you see a fly resting on your food? You could instantly throw your food away no matter how tasty or expensive it is. Or, you could keep eating like nothing happened because “it’s just a fly how bad could it be”
These bugs can look tiny and harmless but they can actually bring some big issues to your plate if you’re not careful.
Besides, it’s better to know what you’re dealing with than to stay blissfully ignorant.
To help you get a better idea of what happens once this bug touches your food, the epic universe did some investigation and prepared this for you.
Image credit: Brightside
1. Flies could vomit on your food.
Houseflies feed is by drinking fluids through their tube-like mouths. The shape of their mouths is the reason why they have to turn any meal into a liquid. To do this, they puke their own saliva on your food, which could contain anything that they’ve eaten before like, rotten meat or feces.
2. They love to lay eggs on food.
Flies are known to use leftovers you’ve been keeping for later as their perfect nest for eggs. And after some time, these eggs will grow into little maggots or larvae who can really harm you with bacteria. So, going forward, remember to always cover your food if you’re going to leave it out for a while.
3. Their legs and wings can turn your food into a nest of bacteria.
By now it is quite obvious that these pesky bugs are filled with bacteria inside. However, did you know that the highest number of bacteria are actually be found outside of their body? According to a research carried out by Nanyang Technological University, “each step a fly has taken leaves behind a microbial colony.” That means anything they touch can get seriously infected very quickly.
4. Flies carry 60 different diseases.
Houseflies can spread more than 65 different diseases to humans just by crawling between garbage and food. These illnesses include dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, and even leprosy. And it’s not just humans that can suffer in the hands of these deadly creatures, flies can infect other animals too, like chickens, pigs, or even our house pets like cats and dogs.
