Eating Bugs and other Creepy Crawlies
 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hT5a9DSXCm...der-763445.jpg

Although I'm not from a insect/arachnid eating culture, as someone who works with insects, I've often been curious as to what it would be like. I've got some ingrained reservations about it, but they're not based on any rationality so I'm prepared to overcome it. I greatly enjoy eating edible crabs and shrimps and they're a bit like large insects, right?

So .. Who's had the pleasure of trying out this (to me) exotic snack and how was it?

I've never thought of crustaceans as insects, not once. The prospect of eating something that was alive, and gooey doesn't sound all that appealing to me. Every decade or so we get thousands and thousands of cicadas that come through my parts, and people grill them up, dry them out, fry them, or just eat them raw. I might take a crack at an insect that was dried out, but even thinking about eating one raw makes me gag a bit.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ied_cicada.jpg

Deep-fried Cicada anyone?

i'm actually very interested to try it out

sad to say, there's no market for that here

i need to travel to Cambodia for that - it seems they have fried tarantulas, worms, and other assorted bugs and arachnids

Very interested in trying it as well. I might start with the particular creepy crawly that scares me the most – scorpion. In China, scorpion on a stick is common. In the United States, a few candy shops sell what are known as scorpion suckers. They're also for sale online.

http://store.padutchcandies.com/PROD...ON_SUCKERS.JPG

The concept, essentially, is a scorpion sealed in candy coating. Strikes me more as a novelty than anything, the taste probably comes second to the fact that you're eating a lolly with a scorpion in it.

The picture in the OP will haunt my nightmares.

Cicadas look like something I would've tried actually. About crustaceans, there are a few terrestrial isopods, called woodlice, which people often belive are bugs, despite the fact they lack the typical characteristics like 6 legs. According to the guys in this video, they taste a bit like prawns.



Scorpions do seem quite popular in that I've often seen people eat them on the telly, typically scorpions-on-a-stick from chinese markets. I've wondered if people remove the stinger before they eat them, but those in the lollies seem to have theirs intact. Can't they poke your tongue?

Nevertheless, I'd be happy to try a scorpion.

I disected a cockroach once and I was surprised at how fatty it was. Basically, its guts were just a bit of intestine going through a big chunk of white fat. So, since fat is rich in energy, I figured cockroaches could be regarded high quality food ;) at least the ones we were working on!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!! Stop posting pics! I can't even read the posts without wanting to vomit! *urp*

I've wondered this. Scorpion stings hurt quite a bit (I've gotten stung in the genitals once) and I'd hate to feel that stinger on my tongue, sexual innuendos aside.

For me, cockroaches simply wouldn't be on the menu. For one, I am deathly afraid of the things. I won't even kill them, they frighten me too much. It's strange considering they can't even bite, or atleast they don't intend to. Second, they're generally considered to be "unclean" bugs. Most people consider them filthy and disease ridden. True or not, I doubt I could get over my cockroach stigma.

I read that maggots taste of whatever you feed them.

Oh god, I can't stand maggots. I've had to put on gloves a few times due to a trashcan outside being infested with them *shudders*.

There's a store here that sells chocolate covered ants, crickets, and mealworms, very similar to what this website is selling: InsectCandy.com

I actually tried the chocolate covered ants once, and they're not bad. You just have to get over the fact that you're eating an ant.

When I was younger I remember someone got me one of those lollipops with a cricket in the center. The candy lollipop was decent enough, despite kind of looking like a solidified version of Irish Springs body wash. I ended up just swallowing the cricket whole, unless I'm starving I don't see the point of eating bugs.

They're a pretty bountiful food source that mostly goes unconsumed due to stigma. I wouldnt mind it at all if more places started serving them, given they are prepared properly.

Indeed .. We may all have to eat bugs one day as other protein food sources become scarce ;)

But for me there's also the culinary aspect of it. Clearly many if not most are completely edible and there are so many insects, they make up over half of all known organisms. If you can get past the stigma, I figure there could be a lot of interesting flavors to explore.

I've eaten chocolate covered ants too - once. When I was young neighbor offered me them, they were from South America and would give me things I haven't tried before like real coconut. I forget what the ants taste like now but I remember at the time I really didn't mind the fact they were ants but I don't think I could stomach bugs/insects larger than that, I don't think I would ever make it on Fear Factor.

i actually eat ants all the time

whenever some food gets ants, i never bother getting them out of it, i consume the whole thing

Food never gets ants here unless perhaps you're on a picnic in a forest, but I guess you have more invasive (pun) species down there :)

We actually have a species of ant in this country which is small and black and called sugar ant. I think they're called that because they're very fond of sugar, but some say they also taste good and it's the only species I know of that you could expect to find in a home, although that's rare. A guy I lived with some ten years back used to occasionally eat them when he found them outside :p: I think he described them as sweet and a bit spicy, like a little zing which I guess may have been the ants' poison gland.

I never actually tried it yet, but perhaps I should. It's this little fella :

http://www.antsworld.com.ua/images/p...us-niger-3.jpg

For norwegian ants, they're quite small. There are much larger species in the forests, but I've never heard of anyone eating them despite the fact they're quite abundant. If you poke a hive with a stick, they give off this faintly sickly smell of formic acid, so I've never wanted to try.

what I eat are thinner and smaller

they're pretty much tasteless, with a flavour of, I dunno, ash or something

Hmm, so your buddy would eat them alive? I don't know if I could do that if they could sting me. We have mostly black ants and of course, the invasive fire ant pests here in the U.S. South, both of which hurt like hell when stung. We also get carpenter ants which are quite large, but I've never tried eating them.

You don't know how lucky you are, tore, to not have fire ants where you live. You can't even have a picnic or lay in the grass in the state of Florida without being swarmed by the nasty little things.

He eats them alive, yeah. Most ants in Norway are not able to do you much damage. You notice a little pinch but the actual pain is usually pretty trivial. Here's a pic of me getting bitten by a worker "forest ant".

http://i.imgur.com/p42qQ.jpg

Way too small to hurt me as you can see. I don't believe these ants have a stinger, but are instead able to spray acid from their abdomen .. I'm not sure if that also goes for the sugar ants, but I can't remember them doing anything but nibbling.

We do have a few species of small, reddish ants which, despite being tiny, do seem to have a bit of a stinger .. If they sting you, it's a bit like getting stung by the bumble bees we have here. It'll hurt (you'll definetly feel it when it gets you) and may be irritated for a few hours after, but they're otherwise harmless. I guess they're a bit like your fire ants, but are fortunately quite rare. I can only remember getting stung once.

ant bites here are very mild

there are bigger red ants but when they bite you, you feel a prick which only lasts a few seconds of itchiness

you have to go really deep into the forest for malicious giant ants

When I was really really little I dug out my back garden with a spoon and ate worms, that counts right :laughing:? I've never eaten any bugs since then but I've eaten some strange foods in Mexico and China, I'm not even sure what was in this 'taco' but it was dry white meat and it wasn't chicken, our friend Alberto said it was Iguana but I don't know if he was winding me up or not.

I've now ordered some cricket and scorpion lollies from a store on the net :p: Not my preferred way of trying bugs/arachnids, but at least it's something. Perhaps I can do a little review. I feel most brave about the crickets, but most curious about the scorpion.

My guess is they won't taste like much due to the sugar though, but hey. Maybe it'll break down some mental barriers if I have them :D

http://www.boozyfruitychocolatyaffai...mages/19_2.png

I wonder if it'll be hard.

Ah, let us know how those taste. You're right though, it'll probably taste like sugar.

Oh, I forgot. I actually did try deep-fried crickets once. They were okay. Tasted kind of grainy.

Grainy sounds more like a texture? Or do you mean that they had a sort of .. bread-y flavour?

I was unclear. I meant that they tasted kind of like corn, or cornbread I guess. May have been due to the way they were prepared as well.

I know you are pretty enthused about eating bugs but maybe those barriers are there for a reason, don't you think? Why do most people have those barriers? Are people afraid to eat things like that because 1.) they are ugly and their innards are slimy & disgusting or 2.) they're not accustom to eating bugs or 3.) is it because like being a picky eat a survival trait? Ticks, Fleas and Mosquitoes (among other things) are known to carry pathogens which can be transferred to humans and animals when are bitten by one - is there any danger of getting sick from eating bugs or insects?

When I was in high school, I had a science teacher who would get bug of the month club edible bugs, and allow whoever had the gonads to try. I consistently had said amount of gonads.

I got to try fried grasshopper (fantastic, but you could clearly see it was a grasshopper and the legs felt weird to chew), chocolate covered crickets (actually very good), cicada (pretty good), and scorpion (wasn't a fan; it felt REALLY weird in my mouth).

I probably wouldn't now...because I'm not sure if vegetarian diet extends to bugs...but it's really not as bad as it sounds. Once it's in your mouth, you're a'ight. My only complaints were textural.

If you look away from the fact that some are poisonous and generally unpleasant (for example many insects produce a chemo defense which basically makes them taste like ****), I don't think it's particularly dangerous, no. Note that all your examples are blood suckers which are really the worst of the lot because they can be highly efficient vectors for parasites and diseases like malaria and lyme disease. However, most edible creepy crawlies are not blood suckers and the diseases and parasites they carry are likely specialized to those taxonomic groups and will not hurt humans.

Some of our fears certainly have basis in our evolutionary history, but I'm sure a lot of it (if not most by far) is cultural. After all, there are many insect/arachnid eating cultures in the world.

I've never eaten any on purpose. I have had bran muffins made with weevils in them though, that was very unpleasant.

Weevils typically have very hard exoskeletons. Were they crunchy? ;)

It was very crunchy and disgusting. It was also the first time that I ate bran too, so my dad told me to shut the fuck up and eat my breakfast. Until he took a bite, that is.

I get the feeling from the look of most large insects if you cook it it probably tastes like chicken. If I'm wrong, just keep ****ing burning it till it tastes like burnt chicken. But I'd wanna check for poison glands, because apparently, the daddy long legs kills you if you eat it.

I've eaten Hou hou grubs cooked, they taste like peanut butter yum!

http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/re...hugrub_250.jpg

Aren't there a number of worms that use insects as intermediary hosts? I'd have to do some research but I have a vague idea there are. Mind you it's equally plausible to catch such things from eating poorly prepared meat.

Yes, there are f.ex stuff like nematode worm parasites which use insects as intermediate hosts, but then again most taxa will have that. The dangers of eating pork parasite-wise is that a pork tapeworm can do just fine inside a human because at the end of the day, there may not be that much difference between a pig and a human as far as the tapeworm is concerned. We have the same organs, the same kind of blood vessels etc. However, any parasite who specializes on insects will find your body a strange environment. Thus, the dangerous parasites from insects should be those who, as you say, are in fact specialized for some sort of mammal, but use insects as intermediate hosts. If they make up a larger parasitic threat than what you generally get from eating other vertebrates, I can't say for sure, but I don't believe that to be the case.

I don't think I've ever heard or read of anyone ever contracting anything dangerous from eating an insect. I know a guy who ate a slug (not insect, but) on a dare, though, and I would never do that. I know the kind he ate are often hosts to parasites that infect ducks (slug predators) and, while I guess even duck parasites won't harm humans that much, I would not like to risk it.

I'll have my crawlies cooked, please. ;)

edit :

That sounds quite yummy actually. I love peanut butter :D

That reminded me of a story a little while ago of a young child getting some form of meningitis after eating a slug or snail. Just Googled "slug brain damage" and this popped up.

Angiostrongylus Cantonensis

I genuinely want to try deep fried stick insects. They are supposed to be delicious and we as a species eat a whole variety of food so why not?