You may have seen the videos. People soaking their strawberries in salt water to see if there are bugs in, and on, the berries. Spoiler alert! There usually are.
There usually are bugs of some kind on fruit. For example, think about fruit flies. They seem to appear out of nowhere, in minutes, whenever there is fruit around. While it is possible you have gangs of fruit flies hanging out around your back door, just waiting for you to show up with fruit and hitch a ride inside, they could have been on the fruit before you even got it. And they might not be the only hitchhikers.
There is apparently another very good reason to wash your fruit with water containing a bit of salt, or even baking soda. It could help break down any pesticide residue that is on the fruit, which is generally the reason people are washing their fruit in the first place.
But people have been posting videos on social media showing little tiny bugs crawling out of their strawberries as the soak in salted water. This is nothing new. Washing your berries is probably a good thing. Just try to ignore any little critters that happen to be along for the ride. These bugs have been doing this for thousands of years. In all of that time, we have learned at least one thing about them.
They taste pretty darn good on a biscuit with whipped cream.
