On Eating Insects

[nancylebov]

An article in Salon promotes eating insects on ecological grounds, but leaves out a argument I've wondered about. Surely our ancestors ate a lot of insects when they were hunter-gatherers, and insects might have nutrients we need. For tolerably obvious cultural reasons, no one has checked on whether this is true.

Comments

fried grasshoppers

[(Anonymous)]

I tried fried grasshoppers in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1996. They were inexpensive and lots of the students liked them. I didn't, at all. But that may be because of how they were seasoned. I do not know what spices were used, and I don't remember how they tasted, only that I did not like them.

David Bellamy

I just cang past the crunch

[wolfdancer.livejournal.com]

if you could peal them, then perhaps.
but I have the feeling that roches re too filthy to eat, else wise the food shortage in NY would be at a end.

Re: I just cang past the crunch

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that insects will have to be *highly* processed (as in reduced to unidentifiable powder) to be acceptable in this culture.

Perhaps people would be willing to eat farmed cockroaches (the way some people will only eat farmed catfish), but cockroaches don't seem to be the insect people especially want to eat even if they do eat insects.

Re: I just cang past the crunch

[avram]

Remember when sushi was something only a handful of weirdoes ate? "Raw fish? Ew!"

Re: I just cang past the crunch

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

Call them "land shrimp" or something similarly innocuous sounding and I'll bet you'd have at least some takers.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Cats and dogs get tapeworms from eating fleas that are carrying them. So maybe eating all insects is not a good plan.

[avram]

That's no worse than the stuff you can catch eating meat, fish, or poultry. Which, in turn, is nowhere near as bad as what can happen to you if you're careless eating mushrooms.

[demonspawnmom.livejournal.com]

I tried a chocolate-covered cricket - the only problem was that the barbs on one of the back legs stuck in my throat. Other than that, it tasted like a chocolate-covered almond.