A Costco shopper sifting through a bag of mixed nuts found a little extra something inside. Judging from their reactions, it was an unwelcome surprise.
The video comes from creator Kendall Brown (@kendall._brown), who asserted, “Costco is getting sued fr” in the caption of her post to TikTok on Friday. Since then, it’s drawn more than 7.5 million views and more than 304,000 likes, satisfying anyone’s definition of viral.
In it, she and a friend have nuts from the bag on a paper plate, and show the bag of Kirkland Signature mixed nuts it comes from, with a label saying the assortment comes from the U.S. and 15 other countries.
One of them exclaims, “Look at that!” as they take a pair of tweezers and extract something worm-like (or perhaps larval) from a peanut, and put it on another paper plate that has several similar-looking creatures that have already been extracted.
Looking at the label, they joke, “Nowhere on it does it say it could possibly contain … bugs.”
They also note it has an expiration date of May 10, 2025.
“That’s crazy!” one of them assesses.
@kendall._brown Bruh Costco is getting sued fr. We definitely ate worms 😭 @Reese #fyp #viral #costco #foryou #worms ♬ original sound – kendall
What could this be?
According to Oklahoma State University’s website, there are a few different types of larvae that find their way into peanuts, including the red-necked peanut worm, the lesser cornstalk borer, the corn earworm, the fall armyworm, the yellow-striped armyworm, woolly worms, lady beetle larvae, and aphid-lions.
It also floats the possibility that “adult insects, arthropods other than insects, and such insects as corn leaf aphids and chinch bugs, which do not have a larval stage,” along with cutworms, can find their way into peanuts.
With that in mind, Peanut Grower wrote a 2012 article called, “Protect Your Investment; Don’t Ignore Late-Season Worms.” That article noted, “Peanut growers know the considerable toll that armyworms, bollworms/earworms, budworms, cutworms and other hungry Lepidoptera can take on their fields. Collectively, they cause economic loss that university entomologists measure in millions.”
Not the reactions you’d expect
You might expect unified collective revulsion from commenters, but this is the internet after all.
“It’s just extra protein,” one joked.
“It’s almost like they grow outside,” said another.
Someone else dropped some very specific knowledge. “Wait till you find out figs are not fruit but instead a flower and can only bloom when a hornet unalives inside of it and the fig consumes their body and gains its nutrients to grow and become ripe.”
Eating Well clarifies, “The vast majority of figs cultivated for market in the U.S. come from self-pollinating fig trees. Outside the mass market agricultural system, some figs are still pollinated by female wasps. According to the BBC’s Science Focus Magazine, ‘If the fig is a male, she lays her eggs inside. These hatch into larvae that burrow out, turn into wasps and fly off, carrying fig pollen with them. If the wasp climbs into a female fig, she pollinates it, but cannot lay her eggs and just dies alone. Luckily for us, the female fig produces an enzyme that digests this wasp completely. The crunchy bits are seeds, not wasp parts.'”
“So nuts are from trees, that grow OUTSIDE where the bugs live and if they are inside of the nut they can survive processing,” another remarked, “Best thing you can do it toss that bag in the freezer for a few days and BAM dead bugs safe to consume!”
To this, someone else assessed, “Still no.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to the creator via TikTok direct message and to Costco via online contact form.
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