This Brilliant (But Effortless) Trick Will Rid Your Kitchen of Fruit Flies

It’s the most hot and gross time of year, which means all the bugs are out and about. Depending on where you are and your eating/food storage habits, that might mean fruit flies are coming for your produce. It’s an uncomfortable state of affairs that’s plagued humanity since, I would assume, gathering fruit has been a thing. But if one novel piece of advice is to be believed, it sounds like the secret to fending off the scourge of fruit flies could rest on drinking more wine.

According to one TODAY editor who had a bit of wisdom passed down from her mother, (it’s more credible than a Qanon Facebook group at least), the secret to keeping fruit flies away from their namesake food group is to simply place the fruit in a bowl along with a few clean, dry wine corks. No pesticides or any other chemical solutions that can compromise your fruit are necessary.

Though it probably sounds simply too good to be true, it turns out cork has the perfect properties that keep fruit flies at bay.

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“Two things attract fruit flies: sugars and moisture,” sommelier Ryan Watts told TODAY. “Natural cork is a perfect deterrent, as the cork material absorbs moisture put off by the ripening fruit and activates a fragrance from the cork that fruit flies are none too pleased about.”

Essentially, those corks (which, again, should be dry before going in with the fruit) will suck up the sugary moisture that’s given off by the fruit, leaving behind nothing but the smell of cork behind. To those pesky flies, there’s something about cork that’s just a huge turnoff. They must not know about wine, so let’s keep that secret for ourselves.

While cork isn’t the only way to deal with fruit flies, it’s the only method that essentially encourages (nay, requires) you to drink a bottle of wine, and that makes it the best in our book. Hey, it sure beats dismantling a bulletin board.