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It’s Time For Another Edition Of Everything Bossy Knows About The Major Ew She Learned From The Farmer’s Almanac.

broccoli

Today’s online Farmer’s Almanac advice is: Soak broccoli in cold water to drown (and sink) cabbage loopers.

Bossy has a problem with this: Sinking and drowning are both verbs used to describe the action of submersion and so Bossy contends the placement of these two words in one declarative sentence is redundant. Also? There Are Cabbage Loopers In Bossy’s Broccoli?

little-dude

The unfortunate answer is hella yes, there’s a whole life cycle of Insecta Lepidoptera in your Pancotto con Broccoli:

life cycle2

The life cycle begins when the Cabbage Looper eggs are deposited on the upper or lower surface of the cabbage, broccoli, or cauliflower leaf. The eggs often form small clusters and they hatch within five days.

egg

Next the Looper enters its larvae stage where it reaches maturity within twenty days. In this stage they are light green with three pairs of legs and an additional yuck retch three pairs of legs.

lucky-looper

Next the Loopers become encapsulated in a thin white cocoon where they turn from green to brown. This stage is called Poo-poo Pupa.

pupa

And finally after about a week the Cabbage Looper Moth appears. Their job is to sit around on your broccoli laying 300 to 600 eggs. On your broccoli.

cabbagelooper-moth

Bossy considers this information Food For Thought.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. OK. I’m never eating broccoli again. Ever. Or cabbage.

    I always wondered why my grandmother did the submersible vegetable thing. Now I know. And I’m so sorry I found out.

    Thanks, Bossy, for alerting us all to this peril.

  4. I was once served broccoli with cooked “loopers” at a fancy schmancy dinner party…haven’t been able to eat it since.

  5. EEEEWWWWW!

    This puts a real damper on my participation in the Farm to City program. Organic, farm-fresh produce. With loopers! YaY! Can’t wait to get some broccoli or cabbage. *shudder*

    Oh heck, suck it up. It’s protein, right?

  6. Ok, I am appropriately grossed out.

    However, if the alternative to submerging broccoli to get rid of pests is consume pesticides, I’ll make the veggies swim.

  8. gee…thanks Bossy. now i feel like loopers are crawling all over me and i’m totally going to have nightmares…

  9. Nooooooooooooooo! I found one once in a head- didn’t eat broccoli for a long time ..the rest I guess I’ve just eaten. Gag, hack.
    And broccoli is so GOOD for us! Eeeuuw, is right.
    Thank you for the pictorial, I think. But you made me LAUGH, and that’s a good thing.
    hugs

  10. you think loopers made you itch? One of my employees said to me yesterday “what are all these little flat round things all over the sofa”, It was covered with bed bugs!!!!!! Oh man, Im all itchy again

  16. oh! the peril. it is very perilous. thank goodness you’re so funy, or i probably would have vomited on myself. and i already did that at blogher.

  17. I was using some basil out of the garden in back the other day, and I thought to myself, “I don’t need to wash this, it’s from MY YARD!” Then, right as I was about to cut it, I encountered a big old Charlotte’s Web-esque spidery egg sack on the inside of one of the leaves. I used that to make pesto. In hell.

  18. yep. I remember them well. My brother and I had fun drowning them when we were young and didn’t care that it was wrong to draw pleasure from such behavior.

    Also precisely why I only eat broccoli that has been frozen.

    R

  20. I was laughing at that life cycle image b/c it reminds me of a stupid high school game where we’d use “in hell” or “in bed” or “during sex” at the end of every sentence. Really does quench the boredom bug.

  22. I wonder, in a lifetime, how many loopers any of us have eaten? Could this be the extra protein that has saved countless vegetarians? What would we be without triple nippled loopers? They’re kinda Dr Seussian, aren’t they? Think. Without loopers, this whole post would be about something else! Thanks, Bossy, for the public service announcement.

  23. That’s why I like coming here, there is always so much to learn in such an educational setting.
    But why wash? isn’t the extra protein good for you?

  25. Yup, I also have served these little critters in a HUGE salad at my parents home at a big family gathering and only until we had all dug into our delicious looking salads and many of us had finished that someone pointed out the swarms of worms all over the broccoli…and I mean ALL over! They are totally the same color and texture of broccoli, and unless you are looking for them you’d never know. Yum yum.

  26. Bossy has officially become my source of educational reading! Now I can tell my mom that “I” was right-broccoli and cabbage are yucky!

  31. I swear to dog … I was just at the grocery and I ALMOST bought broccoli. I’m so glad that I didn’t because it will probably take me months to get over this post and be able to eat broccoli again. Not that I mind.

  32. see, this is why i don’t plant broccoli. i would much rather enjoy it out of the freezer from a packaging plant that i don’t see the hygenics of. but i’m quite sure that they both sink and drown those damned loppers!

  33. Didn’t tell you about the time Bossy’s Husband found one of those cute little critters in his local organic arugula salad. Blech! Totally NOT Bossy’s fault. In fact, she wasn’t even home!

  34. Mommy.

    (I’d fallen behind on your blog but am having so much fun getting caught up. I’m especially grateful for your Blogher posts. Now I don’t feel like I missed a thing! And dang, you’re gorgeous!)

  36. Um, yeah. Thanks for the info. One less vegetable I have to worry about fitting into my diet. No wonder it’s so packed with fiber. Effing loopers.

    SOOOOO happy that I found your blog! Thanks to The (wonderful) Pioneer Woman…

  38. I hopped over here to lurk off of “Ree” aka Pioneer Woman’s blog. In the slang of previous teenagers in this house, GAG A MAGGOT. I am boycotting vegetables.

  39. Thank you SO much for giving me a better excuse for not eating broccoli then “it gives me gas”.

    Now, thanks to you, I can say,

    “No, thank you, I do not eat broccoli because it contains cabbage loopers.”

    The Ewwwwwww Factor of this post is enormouse!

  43. Hi, here thought Suzy. That’s why we no longer plant broccoli or brussel sprouts in our garden. Too gross!
    I also don’t eat swordfish anymore because I found a live squirming worm in my frozen swordfish once. My husband ate it no problem.

  47. I doubt those fucking loopers could survive my preferred method of broccoli cooking: roasting, with coarse salt, garlic and fresh parmesan. God damn bugs, trying to ruin fresh produce for everyone!

  54. Yummy. “No one likes me, everybody hates me. I think I’ll go eat worms.”

    Hey, just found your blog through Yvonne. Looks like BlogHer was awesome and I’m still sad I couldn’t go. Maybe next year. (sniff, sniff).

  56. So those things are in broccoli? Great. I never soaked it, only rinsed. Guess I really do have butterflies in my stomach.

    Thank you, thank you…I’ll be here all weed. Tip your server and enjoy the buffet.

  59. well that’s just unpleasant. I am sufficiently skeeved out — french fries instead of vegetable, please!

  60. And this is exactly why the bag with the broccoli in our weekly farm share goes in the other person’s box. YUCK. And why I never grow broccoli.

  62. Ah yes, the reason I only serve teeny tiny brocolli florets… because after finding cooked loopers once I have to inspect every little bit of it. Also I cannot roast peppers whole since finding a looper in the middle of one where it had eaten it’s way inside once. Oh, and potatoes… those potato beetles just curl up in the middle and get baked with the rest of it…

    I am still a vegetarian.