Snippet from the article:
Some spices contain ingredients you won’t find in any recipes. The Food and Drug Administration recently found that spices entering the U.S. are nearly twice as likely as the average fda-regulated foodstuff to contain Salmonella pathogens or unacceptable amounts of filth. Roughly 12 percent of spice imports, which make up the bulk of the U.S. supply, exceeded federal limits on the “maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects,” such as insect body parts and animal hair. In sufficiently small amounts, the fda reasons, such defects “pose no inherent hazard to health.”
Read the rest (and see the nifty visual aid) — Spice Imports Carry Lots of Filth
Around 170 insect fragments or 25 rodent hairs is the level required to be recognized as adulterated. I guess we should think twice before eating spice imports.