Why Not Eat Bugs?

[Junket]

[url]http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/archive/2008/06/03/pass-the-land-shrimp.aspx?GT1=38001[/url]

Here's something good you can do for your body and your planet: Eat more bugs.

Janet Raloff has the goods in this week's Science News. We're facing worldwide environmental, obesity, and food crises. Bugs are the answer.

Consider the nutritional value of the humble cricket: Each 100 grams of dehydrated tissue has 1,550 milligrams of iron, 340 milligrams of calcium, and 25 milligrams of zinc -- three minerals often lacking in the diets of third-world countries. If you're ever lost in the woods, three crickets a day will meet your iron needs. Compared to beef or pork, bugs deliver more minerals and healthier fats.

Bugs are also more energy-efficient. Crickets deliver twice as much edible tissue as pigs and almost six times as much as steers based on the same food input. And that's not counting their superior rate of reproduction. One scholar calculates that overall, they're 20 times more efficient than steers.

That global food crisis you've been reading about? No problem. An Asian expert reports that in Thailand, each family can raise crickets independently on a tiny parcel of land. In a pair of villages, 400 families are cranking out 10 metric tons of crickets during the peak season.

Bug-eating also reduces the need for pesticides. The more bugs you eat, the less you have to spray. That's what happened in Thailand, where locusts have been brought under control through culinary culling.

You've never eaten bugs? You're missing out. People in most countries eat insects. Central Americans eat butterfly larvae. South Americans eat beetles. Africans eat ants, caterpillars, and grubs. Asians eat fried crickets. Aborigines eat honey ants.

You say bugs are gross? Why? Is it the exoskeleton? The appendages? The weird eyes? Guess what: You already eat animals with these characteristics. They're called crustaceans. Shrimp, crabs, lobsters -- they're arthropods, just like crickets. They're also scavengers, which means their diets are as filthy as any bug's.

Many of these arguments have been around for more than a century. Vincent Holt made the original case in his 1885 manifesto, Why Not Eat Insects? Lately, a Web site called food-insects.com has taken up the cause. Three years ago, an Italian professor published Ecological Implications of Minilivestock: Potential Of Insects, Rodents, Frogs And Snails. A company called Sunrise Land Shrimp is bringing the movement to the United States. "Mmm," says the company's cricket logo. "That's good Land Shrimp!"

See what a few good euphemisms can accomplish? "Minilivestock" and "land shrimp" can do for bugs what "mountain oysters" have done for bull testicles. And for those of you who still can't stand the idea of beetle-munching, there's even better news. Remember that project I've been touting to grow meat without growing animals? Dutch researchers are extending it to insects. Raloff reports:

They're using biotechnology to produce vats of insect cells -- just isolated cells. The researchers described their efforts last year in Biotechnology Advances. The goal, explains Marjoleine C. Verkerk of Wageningen University, is to produce a sanitized source of bug proteins that can be dried and added to breads or perhaps molded into pseudo-burgers. Her team is mass producing isolated ovary cells of silkworms, fall armyworms, cabbage loopers and gypsy moths.

All that good insect protein, without the eyes and legs. What could be better?

Mmm. That's good land shrimp.

I still don't think I could eat the damned things.

[boobaa]

I would eat bugs, yes. I am curious to new tastes. I would probably try some, but I have no idea how to prepeare the damn things and catching large amount of ants is a task too. Fried ants with chocolate are told to be really good.

I believe bugs can taste good. Its just the matter of habits. We are not used to see bugs as food, we see them as parasites only and so we are raised with disgust against them. For example, a person can be raised with disgust amongst pork also.

[vashti]

I just read an article about this when riding a train from Boston to NYC. There was some sort of bug-cooking contest...

[Pears]

I'd try a fried cricket. I wouldn't be able to get myself to eat a cockroach though, ugh!

[Gribble]

You eat bugs all the time and you don't even know it.

Ever eat M&Ms? The shiny color comes from insect shit. Ever eat anything dyed red? That's carmine. Ground insect eggs.

So if you've ever eaten a red M&M you've eaten chocolate coated in bug eggs and shit. Yum.

[misombra]

i saw a silkworm climbing up to a tree today. if i would've known he was good for me i would've eaten him. hey he was gonna go eat that tree anyway!

[Tone]

Ha I just read that article before coming to LF today.

I'll eat bugs. Good protein!

[lastwish]

Bugs taste good as long as its cooked with a good sauce. I've ate beetles before in a restaurant (I don't know what kind...I just ate whatever was ordered). Crunchy..yum.

[Illusional]

i was watching this thing on food network where this one guy had hosted an exotic eating party and everything that was prepared what insects... i can't imagine eating tempura spiders... f that shit.

anyways, do you guys watch the travel channel with i forget his name. anyways, he's willing to eat just about anything..

raverboy

[Mish]

It sounds like what we need is a "Bug feast day"

[IndiReloaded]

I'd eat crickets. Lizards live off them, so they can't be all bad. At minimum they are life sustaining.

We already eat bee vomit (i.e. honey). I agree that crabs & shrimp are basically bugs. Shrug.

I'd draw the line at things like caterpillars & centipedes, tho. Anyway, a lot of those are poisonous.

What's the weirdest thing you (knowingly) have eaten?

[anachronistic]

I would have to roast those mother****ers... and douse them in A1 sauce.

I would not eat anything poisonous or that has anything more than 6 legs. I would not eat slugs.

I think I would eat grass before I resorted to bugs.

and I do not understand how so many people starve in Africa with all those ****ing animals.

[vashti]

I don't eat shellfish or pork. (I used to.) Shellfish is nothing more than a gigantic bug.

I had escargot before.... I learned that anything slathered in garlic butter or chocolate can be eaten.

[Lipp]

I remember that as a young kid I had a birthday party and served everyone a big lollipop with an entire insect inside of each one to eat. Only a few who dared to

Personally I wouldn't mind eating bugs, problem I find with them is the lack of edible meat, as with the examples of crustaceans we don't eat the skeletal parts but instead the flesh. I'd probably eat maggots if they were chopped up so that you don't recognize it as a worm.

Hey, we're eating candy with colouring from lice and drink great amounts of beverages with bacterial excrement, this aint a big step.

[Lipp]

and I do not understand how so many people starve in Africa with all those ****ing animals.

Someone has found the Discovery channel. Switch back to BBC to find out.