Some of the better known stories about gross finds in foods.

One of the oldest jokes around goes like this:

Man in Restaurant (to Waiter): Hey, what’s this fly doing in my soup?

Waiter: Why, sir, I believe he’s doing the backstroke.

Stories of gross things, including insects and, dare we say, body parts, found in prepared foods go back a long way, probably as far back in time as food history itself. Some of the stories are true and many are false. Some of the stories, while only half true or completely false can have the effect of changing the way whole societies eat or drink.

Case in point—rat urine on soda cans can cause disease and/or death. While in America, this story has pretty much been proven to be false and it has not affected the way Americans drink soda from cans other than the occasional washing the pop top before drinking. But In Brazil, you’ll notice if you go to any convenience store, luncheonette or restaurant and order a can of soda, you will automatically receive a straw to drink the soda with. Why? Ask any Brazilian and they will tell you that the rumor is completely true and there is no way you are going to convince them otherwise. So, instead of taking their chances, Brazilians just play it safe and use a straw.

What about those stories of people finding fingers in food? Is it a reality or a hoax? In the case of a woman in March of 2005 finding a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili in San Jose, California, it was true that there was, in fact, a severed finger in the chili, but it was ultimately discovered that the woman and her partner had planted the finger in the chili in an elaborate plot to extort money from the burger giant. Although early on, it was determined and reported that the finger did not belong to anyone associated with Wendy’s but instead belonged to the perpetrators’ friend, the initial news did a number on Wendy’s bottom line, even after the couple was sentenced to jail for the stunt.

The standard story of someone finding a finger in their jar of gherkins has seen many different variations over the years and this has led most people to believe that the story is a hoax. But the possibility of finding a body part in processed food is very real when you consider that accidents in food processing plants happen frequently. Take the 2008 case of a New Jersey man who fell into a vat of melted chocolate while loading the chocolate into the vat. One has to go on faith that that particular vat of chocolate was immediately thrown out and the vat scrubbed clean before another batch of chocolate could be made.

It’s not easy being green could easily have been what an East Texas woman was saying in July of last year when she was heating some Great Value frozen green beans she had purchased from the local Wal-Mart and discovered half of a frog mixed in with the veggies. We can only imagine that the wheels will be turning in some future con artist’s head when he reads the story and tries to figure out a way to capitalize on finding his own amphibian treat in a bag of frozen vegetables.

But perhaps one of the strangest finds in food recently comes out of a Cininnati Rally’s Hamburgers where a woman purchased two Rally’s fish sandwiches and discovered a small amount of crack cocaine wrapped in with the sandwich. The find didn’t appear to bother her much, because as she put it “There was quite a bit of it, and I thought well this doesn't belong in a sandwich, this is not part of what I should normally get from Rally's, so I ate the other sandwich and called the police.”

Since we’re never really sure if the stories we read about such as roaches crawling out of salads or restaurant employees spitting on food that is returned by diners, and any number of other gross happenings that have us swearing we’ll never eat outside of the home again, are true or false, a good rule of thumb to follow is to make sure you check your food twice before actually eating it and never let your friend talk you into trying to pull a prank on Wendy’s. They’ve now pretty much seen it all.