According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 12 percent of the United States' imported spices are contaminated with things like rodent hair, insects parts, whole insects and salmonella.

FDA released their report on Wednesday, which included years' worth of research on imported spices. According to the report, 6.6 percent of imported spices were contaminated with salmonella, which is 1.9 times more than other FDA-regulated imported foods during the time of study. Insect parts were found twice as much in imported spice as in other imported food.

During the three-year-long study, the FDA sent back 749 shipments of spice because of salmonella contamination. In addition, 238 shipments were refused because of "filth," which includes live and dead whole insects and insect parts, animal, bird and insect excrements, sheep, dog, cat, rodent, bat and other animal hair and additional nastiness like rubber bands, bird feathers, staples, stones, twigs, plastic and synthetic fibers.

Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, told Fox News that there was no need to stop eating spices. To be safe, spices can be applied to food before it is cooked.

Jane M. Van Doren, a food and spice official at the FDA, told The New York Times that spice contamination is a "systemic challenge" most likely caused by poor processing and storage methods.

Since people do not usually consider spices when determining which food infected them, it is hard to tell how many of the United States' 1.2 million annual reported salmonella poisonings come from contaminated spices. From 1973 to 2010, however, less than 2,000 people connected their salmonella poisoning to spices, many of them were children.

Many of the spices examined came from India, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam. Spices from Mexico and India had the highest contamination rates. Almost 25 percent of the United States' spices, oils and food coloring come from India.

"There is no magic wand for any of the problem we're addressing," Taylor said.

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