 I ate bugs for lunch. This time it was on purpose. By some experts' estimates, the average person inadvertently downs about one pound of insect parts a year, in foods as varied as chocolate (which can contain 60 insect components per 100 grams by law in the United States), peanut butter (30 insect parts per 100 grams) and fruit juice (up to five fruitfly eggs and one to two larvae for every 250 milliliters). In light of the United Nations' recent plea for increased insect consumption, I decided to take the insects by the antennae and join the 2 billion people worldwide who deliberately make creepy, crawly creatures a part of their regular or special occasion diet. The big problem as the researchers see it: the ick factor. As Americans, many of us are geographically separated from the source of our food. It's often much easier to accept lab-created, industrially-formed X-Treem Cheez-O Blasters or highly-preserved, artificially flavored, over-salted microwaveable entrees as viable snack and meal solutions, over creatures we're conditioned to swat away, zap with garden pesticides or crush with our shoes. Frankly, I wasn't entirely sure I could do it. I'm an adventurous eater. I down cow heads, bull balls, and squirrel stew with great relish. But I can't pretend I didn't have a visceral, emotional resistance to the notion of consuming creatures I'd been conditioned to think of as dirty pests and would be unhappy to find inhabiting my kitchen.
Boy, am I glad I sucked it up, because otherwise, I'd have missed out on the piquant and crunchy glory of grasshopper tacos. Chapulines (cleaned grasshoppers toasted with salt, lime and chile) are an ideal gateway bug for nervous, first-time insect eaters: their well-balanced, salty, spicy, tangy flavor is reminiscent of some of our nation's finest and most familiar snacking products, and fried or toasted exoskeleton makes for killer crunch. The grasshoppers in the tacos I so mightily enjoyed at chef Julian Medina's Toloache restaurant in New York City had a minor, meaty pop after the initial bite, not unlike a well-crisped shrimp. Perhaps it's because I don't have any real metric against which to measure, but there was nothing discernibly "buggy" about the meal I enjoyed, and plan to again soon. It's a small and silly victory over squeamishness, but one that's whet my appetite for the next insect adventure. Here's a handful of restaurants and vendors serving bug-based dished around the United States. Maybe I'll see you there, across a bowl of silkworm pupae soup or an ant egg omelet. Where to eat insects in the U.S.: Audubon Nature Institute – Bug Appétit Dan Sung Sa Don Bugito Prehispanic Snacketeria La Oaxaqueña Mezcal Mok Maru Jong Sul Jip Oyamel Pocha 32 Sake Bar Kirakuya Sticky Rice Thai Toloache Tu Y Yo Typhoon Where to buy insects for home cooking and snacking: People who care an awful lot about entomophagy: Did we miss your edible favorite bug vendor? Give them a shout out in the comments below. Previously: |
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cant wait to start cooking with cricket protein, just ordered a pack from The Farmed Insect co. http://www.thefarmedinsectcompany.com/
If i ever had to like in a survival situation then perhaps, but naturally to people at first sight would be disgusted by the thought of it. Even though supposely from a book I have read.
It saids, that the FDA allows certain levels of bugs to be present in various foods.
For instance, up to 60 aphids in 3 1/2 ounces of broccoli, two to three fruit fly maggots in 200 grams of tomato juice, 100 insect fragments in 25 grams of curry powder, 74 mites in 100 grams of canned mushrooms, 13 insect heads in 100 grams of fig paste, and 34 fruit fly eggs for in every cup of raisins.
It also mentions have much more nutritional value that insects have in comparison to beef and fish.
Honestly bugs arent that bad i mean they taste good almost as good as snakes.
As a cunning linguist, i entertain new ideas with relish. On reading this piece, my 1st thought... Give it to Mikey, he will eat anything.
Notice the countries where the 2 billion bug eaters come from? The greatest source of our immigration!
Think they like the food better here? Just sayin is all.
Mmmmmm crunchy!!!!
The article talks about the "ick factor" as if it were irrelevant. Truth is, the "ick factor" is often there for a very good reason. Whether instinctive or culturally transmitted, it keeps us from eating/drinking/doing things that are dangerous to our survival. What would the fallout be from widespread bug-eating? Who knows. But somewhere back there, in time out-of-mind, there were very good reasons it became taboo in our culture to eat bugs. Just because we have forgotten the reasons doesn't mean they don't exist.
If you look back thousands of years, you see that people all over the world have been eating bugs since the dawn of history. Most people in the world still do, and anybody who buys groceries in a supermarket still does as well, they just don't realize it. You talk about the wide-spread fallout from bug eating...I hate to break it to you but it already is widespread and has been for thousands of years, and people continue to do it. Why? They're cheap, healthy, and tasty when cooked right. Does a chicken cooked poorly or served raw have an "ick factor"? I hope so.
Only western nations in the past few hundred years have shied away from eating them. The bible even discusses John the Baptist living on honey and Locusts, and there are 8 different species of locust considered Kosher by Jewish dietary laws.
Should we eat any and every bug we find? No, of course not. Some are toxic, some won't taste good. That's like saying "because we don't eat hyenas, cats, or vultures, we shouldn't eat cows, pigs, or chickens." There are thousands of edible species, and untold numbers that we haven't tested or even discovered.
In today's age, the massive amount of chemicals we use in western agriculture and pest control means it would be harmful to go outside and eat a bug off of the ground. If you grow bugs in a hygienic environment and feed them organic food waste, you get a food source that is better than beef/pork/chicken/fish in almost every way, from cost and resource consumption, to nutrition and protein content.
Great, well thought out response! Spot on.
Eat bugs and be like Chinese.
If bugs were so tasty to eat, I'm sure it would be mainstream. The only people who eat bugs primarily when it isn't a necessity are people seeking attention.
People eat bugs in:
Central America
South America
Africa
Australia
The Middle East
India
Southeast Asia
China
Japan
In addition, there are restaurants you can eat insects in all over the western countries:
Germany
France
England
USA
Canada
So really, the people who get freaked out by the idea are the vast minority on a global scale. In addition, if you shop in the grocery store you already eat them, albeit unknowingly.
Thanks a lot I just lost my hunger for that. How about Vodoo dolls for the white folks the far right wing nuts. I just lost my taste buds.
And when the bug eaters get god-knows-what parasites, they will be in for some real hell. Just say no.
Bugs, when raised and cooked properly, have vastly lower amounts of bacteria and other pathogens like Ecoli than other meat sources. Especially if you're comparing them to factory farmed meats. In addition, if you eat anything you buy in a grocery store, you're already eating bugs. The FDA has mandated allowances for all types of food, from bread to canned soup to apples to chocolate. You're already eating them, you just don't realize it. Ever thought about what goes into hot-dogs?
Still Nasty.
Missing the point...
We're a fledgling non-profit educating Austin about edible insects. We source our bugs from WorldEnto, a recent startup working closely with the University of Georgia. WorldEnto raises insects specifically for human consumption, and raises them in hygenic environments on organic diets to assure quality. I don't think any of the other vendors mentioned can make the same claims, as most insects are raised for pet-feed or shipped in from other countries. Hit me up if you've got Entomophagy questions!
This piece of brilliance comes from UN bureaucrats? Let those squatting bureaucrat toads eat bugs. I didn't rise to the top of the land based food chain for bugs. Steak, steamed veggies, a nice wine, decadent cheese cake, topped off with a fine cigar and an adult libation for me...bugs for the toads....
Amen!
if bugs taste so great, why do they always have to smother them in chocolate or lots of spices, fried coatings, etc? Whenever Bear Grylls or survivor man eat bugs, they have a really nasty look on their face as them swallow it down.
animals taste nasty when eaten raw unless you're used to that kind of diet.
Ever had a bite of raw pork/chicken/beef? Not that tasty either. We cook food to make it taste better and be less likely to make us sick. Same thing with bugs.
Time for a wine opinion. Need to have a wine and bug matching event.
That really does need to happen!
A pairing of pupae and a pinot noir would be interesting.
Mmmm! Entymologic, yet subtly impudent.
Coming soon to Austin TX :)
I will stick with Lion Taco's thanks
Hey, people eat hot dogs – why not bugs?
I tried a hot dog in China, but it was too much dog for my taste.
Sure bugs are plentiful and if people ate bugs there would be more food for everyone. But I bet you the price in US supermarkets would not be much less than what people are paying for regular food now. The cost of living never goes down.
Nothing like fried ants from Santander, Colombia; they taste kind of like popcorn, but with a formic acid kick.
lemon maybe??
Don't we spend billions of dollars in this country buying sprays to kill some of these things? Now I have to eat them?
You dont "have" to do anything – including read or comment on the story...
It's called 'tongue in cheek,' Bob.
But thanks for reaching out, lol.
Blow it out Uranus,Bob !!
I've had a few different kinds of bugs and other creepy-crawlies, and I liked most of them! Spider is gross, it was like a hairy potato chip. But some sort of caterpillar thing fried with peanuts and spices were the best.
So this guy ate in a Chinese restaurant. Big deal.
1. Girl. 2. Mexican restaurant.
Sooner or later someone will think of a way to put it on a bun make it taste as close to a hamburger as a turkey burger a little special sauce and we're in business. They drag the eating bugs chestnut out at least once or twice a year.
My guess is if you dine on to many grasshoppers you'll get the Cheez-O-Blasters!
Why would anybody shrink at eating insects and at the same time devour shrimp? Not much difference, really. Take a GOOD LOOK at a shrimp. A WHOLE shrimp, with the feelers and legs and all..........
agree!
Because when you squash a bug all you get is bug juice. No meat.
You are right. And shrimp and lobster are bottom feeders. What do you think they eat? Yuck! And yet we consider them delicacies.
There's a cookbook out there written by an ex-mobster, wherein he mentions how he and his mobster friends loved eating "bugs" (i.e. lobsters).
We really are turning into a third world country !!
.
Waiter! There's a fly on my grasshopper.
That is hilarious and depending on how the grasshopper was cooked the fly may taste better!!!
Seems the 'foodnazis' are alive and well!
I think a taco would be a great way to try grasshoppers – it's easier if you disguise them a bit like that.
Kat, you have something in your teeth.
For some reason...This article Bugs me.
Its a much overlooked source of protein!