eating bugs and worms ?

[Scibaer]

i watch tv shows about other cultures, cooking shows about foods from other cultures , and a few doomsday shows on the history channel about how we are running out of food and space to grow food.
 one thing that keeps coming up and into discussion is , eating bugs and worms
i have this thought, that someday we will be using bugs and worms as an addition to or a primary food source.
 they are plentiful, easy to raise , grow and harvest. high in protein and macro - renewable
i can see this coming..
 anyone else having these ideas too ?
 

[don heath]

Living in Africa and having been a senior parks officer I have been forced (out of politeness) to eat many of the local delacies...dried locusts, dried mopane worms (a type of catepilar rather than an earth worm), sundry snakes, rats and bats. If you put enough chilies with any of the above they can, in fact, be eaten by a human being

Asside from the mopane worms (traditionally served with lots of chili anyway) would I ever take a helping unless I 'had' to? No... If I need proties there are always more palitable sources- Jugo (nemo) beans beans being the most common...but if you are too lazy to plant, you get to eat whatever s¤#t is available...and if you are the lone white man in the kraal, the locals always get a laugh out of seeing what they can force you to eat/drink  (you should try the local beer- chibuku...it also needs a generous helping of dried birds eye chillies).

[rlm2007x]

I'll never eat that crap!  Robert

[Graybeard]

I'm afraid I'll just have to starve before eating bugs and worms tho with the fat reserve I currently have it should be a long time before the danger of starvation occurs. I don't see me ever being that hungry.

[Reverend Recoil]

Grasshoppers are Kosher.  John the Baptist served roasted grasshoppers with a honey dipping sauce to his cave guests.

[charles p]

On Dirty Jobs last week, Mike Rowe at a few magots at a bait farm.

You are what you eat.

[Scibaer]

well, i'm not saying that its going to happen over night.
some places have been pushing the eating of insects and worms for quite a while now and it has not
really caught on, there is something in people nature not to eat insects i think, but ..
 if you listen to the professionals that work on things like this, we are headed that way.
it does sounds like the fine folks here dont like the idea, lol and i know from experience the majority
of guys here got their heads on straight.
i just wondered what you all thought about insects for lunch 

[SHOOTALL]

You should have ask if you would eat such if you knew you were doing so. Most processed food is allowed a certian amount of trash. Just a thought

[Lloyd Smale]

there was a show on tv i watched once that said that the average american ate alot of bugs. I forget the numbers but in your lifetime it was in pounds. Processed foods are allowed to have a percentage of them in it and we eat them about every day. Bottom line is that with all BS aside ANYONE thats hungry enough will eat anything that will fill your belly.

[Scibaer]

thats true Lloyd. i guess where i was going with this was, growing meal worms or crickets or whatever insect/bug/worm in the house or garage or where ever as a food source. lets say  someone raises meal worms and uses them as an addition to meals or adds them to things like chili or soups.
 that very thing is done in alot of countries, last nite i saw a show, where a woman harvested, cooked and sold spiders as food.
it was her business and she sold into the hundreds of deep fried tarantulas every day at the market..
 i think that is a very different thing then eating a bug unknowingly with your food.

[SHOOTALL]

Not now the cat is out the bag , bet everyone who reads this will be looking at the crumbs in potato chip and cookie bags a little closer next bag.

[Scibaer]

oh man  , i read that peanut butter  and vienna hotdogs have the highest percentages of 'foreign material' allowed into the foods as ready to ship  during processing ...  i take that to mean bugs, dust/dirt or whatever can be in these foods when they are packaged and shipped to the grocery store, and that the amount of that material could be significant ??  woah mama ! 

[Victor3]

 I wouldn't mind much if they were ground up so I couldn't see any bug parts. Mixed with some normal food I'd at least try it.

 My friend lives in China and once sent me pics of a market with all kinds of gross looking beetle shish kabobs and such. He ate some of the stuff just because he likes to be able to say he did, but didn't sample anything he'd want to eat twice.

 I'd rather live on rattlesnakes if I had a choice between them and any kind of bug. They taste pretty good.

[teamnelson]

Termites in a pan, smells like bacon, crunchy. Have to eat a bunch to get full. But I'd probably try to eat the things that eat bugs first.

[bilmac]

It's just a cultural thing, but in the summer time when you can find bugs, I would hope that I could find something that would upset my culture a bit less.

[Oldshooter]

OK its impossible to put this so that it isn't offensive.

But an old aunt of mine once told me that a hungry dog would eat feces. ( I was balking at her idea of lunch) That thought still stays with me today!  Never say never!