Organically Grown Fruit ... Flies

Recently I bought a small container of organically grown cherry tomatoes from Whole Foods. I like to shop at Whole Foods because their produce -- both organic and conventional -- is very fresh. Their eggs also come from cage-free hens and their meat comes from animals that are raised and slaughtered humanely. Unfortunately, my husband and I discovered a few days ago that my fresh, organically grown tomatoes seem to have come with a complimentary batch of fruit flies .... Yuck!

I suppose having fruit flies and other small creatures in one's food is to be expected occasionally when one buys fruits and vegetables grown without pesticides, but I'm not happy having them in my house. My husband and I have been joking about trying to catch some of the fruit flies and sending them to our friend Mohamed Noor, who uses these insects in his research. I'm not sure how we could catch the flies without killing them, though, and I have no idea how we could get them to Mohamed. I definitely don't think the postal service would be too happy if we tried to send him the flies through the mail!

Thinking of Mohamed, though, reminded us of a technique he uses to catch fruit flies that have gotten loose in his laboratory. To attract the flies, Mohamed puts out beakers containing premium orange juice. The fruit flies will crawl into the flasks, attracted by the juice, then drown in the liquid. It's rather like the technique my husband and I use to kill slugs in our garden, which involves digging a small hole next to the garden into which one places a margarine tub containing some beer. The slugs will crawl into the tub, attracted by the beer, and drown. It's a rather mean trick to play on them, but at least they die happy .... We'll see whether or not the orange juice trick works as well.