I love to have pepper in my freezer to make cooking stuffs like beans, spaghetti and fried eggs easier and faster but in the past one week now I have noticed that all the pepper I bought at different times and in different places all have maggots in them. The irony of the story is that these peppers (ata rodo and tomatoes) all look very fresh. The irritating thing is that if I had not manually grinded them, I wouldn't have seen the maggots; and it means I had them in the pepper I took for machine grinding.

Is there a way around this? I need to make a pot of soup but very scared of going to buy maggots-infested pepper again.

Good question I too need to know

Looks like you may need to open the manually....

Remember, its your health...

Look for fresh ones with no hole at all in anyone. That could be difficult though because sellers sometimes mix fresh ones with their left over stock or there could be some broken ones among fresh ones from the stress of transporting them to market or even scarcity and high cost that can make sellers go for any one available not forgetting the feasibility in checking one for freshness. It is through the hole or broken spot the microscopic eggs that give rise to the worms gain access to the pepper. Your safest bet is to get those fresh ones that still has some greeness (show ripe) ie not too ripe or red (my favorites because of its fresh spicy flavour and scent yet cheaper as not many people know its beauty). Grind them, dry them on fire like you would your tomato and store in freezer for use whenever.

Nevertheless, try not to be too attach to trivial things like that to avoid unnecessary irritations and stress, afterall the worms have been killed by grinding and destroyed by heat. You dont even want to know what conditions some of the sellers have subjected the peppers to for it to be fresh for you.