Buggy Cherries
Question:
When eating cherries, does one have to worry about bugs inside the fruit? The question may seem simple, but since there are no holes in some of the cherries, the worms found inside seem to have grown inside the cherries. How does one check cherries? Is cutting them in half and searching for worms sufficient?
Answer:
Some worms tend to affect fruit while the fruit is still attached to the tree. Those worms are forbidden even if they have not left the fruit.[1] Worms that come only after the fruit is detached from the tree are only forbidden if they have crawled out of the fruit. A hole in the fruit or even a black spot indicates a likelihood that at least part of the worm came out (and may have gone back in) and is thus forbidden. Although we have two cherry trees in our garden, I cannot say when the worms hit the cherries; the birds manage to get every last cherry before we do. Even if the worms only come after the cherry is picked, you may not be able to detect an exit point. To find out the procedure for checking cherries and to know what to look out for, I suggest you get a local Israeli handbook by someone who has researched this important field of halachoh. I am not familiar with this. The types of insects and their infestation statistics vary from place to place and time to time.
BookID: 2 Chapter: 84
[1] יו''ד סימן פ''ד ס''ו וש''ך שם ס''ק י''ט.