People are vowing never to eat strawberries again after TikTok video shows hidden bugs

A new social media trend is resulting in people vowing never to eat strawberries again, as it turns out there may be more to them than meets the eye.

The trend started earlier this week with TikTok user Seleste Radcliffe, who shared a video her demonstrating a technique for removing tiny bugs from store-bought strawberries.

In the video, she removes an unopened pack of strawberries from her fridge, places them in saltwater for a few minutes, and then zooms in on the tiny bugs.

"Apparently if you wash your strawberries in water and salt, all the bugs will come out," TikTok user Seleste Radcliffe said in a video showing her trying the method, which has been liked more than 83,000 times.

Check out the video below:

"And little critters will come out. Look at that, look at that!" she continued, as zoomed in on a small bug and forever put me off my favorite fruit.

Now, you may be like me and think that it was all staged - but no. It turns out that after Seleste's video went viral on TikTok, people all over social media started to share their own experiences trying the #strawberrieswithbugs challenge.

And. There. Are. Loads.

After a quick search on social media, I found so many videos of people dumping their strawberries in salt water, and then finding tiny bugs inside them. Take a look below:

And, as you can imagine, people are so grossed out by what they've seen that they've vowed never to eat strawberries ever again.

One Twitter user with the handle @jessicastea_ wrote: "This is actually gross i feel sick omg never eating a strawberry again".

Another user with the handle @Aloha__cmb typed: "Wtf I'm so sad strawberries are my favorite fruit but after this video I'm never eating one again."

And a third, @suns3tsal, shared a video and said: "I’m actually never eating another strawberry again."

Now, according to the Cloud Mountain Farm Center, the tiny worms are "most likely the larvae of Spotted Wing Drosophila, a non-native fruit fly that lays its eggs", and can be found in many different fruits.

And if you're worried about eating them - don't be! The worms are not harmful if ingested, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) actually allows foods to have a certain amount of bugs in them.

"It is economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects," the FDA explains on its website, with defects referring to whole insects and larvae.

What is a little gross is that it also allows for rodent hairs and mold... What are we eating?!