My late ex-Mother-In-Law used to spread grits out on the deck of her summer cabin in Virginia, claiming that she read somewhere that if the carpenter ants that plagued the place ate the grits and then consumed water, that the grits would expand and destroy them. A natural pesticide.

It reminded me of stories from ex-navy people who claimed if you threw up pieces of an Alka-Seltzer tablet to the hungy and ever-present gulls that followed the ship and were physically unable to fart, that it would cause the birds that ate them to eventually explode from the expanding gasses while the sailors watched with amusement.

Can someone please tell me--Fact or Legend?