Eating Insects

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pict

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Jan 7, 2003
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Here's a question (Before Golok asks it eventually!)

How many of you have eaten insects on purpose? What did you eat, how did you catch, prepare, keep it down?

Personally I have eaten ants in Colorado, raw, fresh out of the ground. They tasted sort of lemony.

I have also eaten a roasted grasshopper (from a can of roasted grasshoppers... Korean thing). It tasted like you picked a bug up out of the windowsill and ate it.

Here in Brazil there are a great many bugs that civilized people eat. The most common is a huge ant, nearly as large as an English Hornet. The last body section is about 1 cm long and white. They snap off this last section and fry them in a pan with oil then mix in toasted manioc flour. I have yet to try it because most who like it won't admit it to an American, even one that will try anything once. Mac
 
This is a subject that is interesting. Some people think that insects are the food of the future. In some parts of the world they are the food of the present. I havent tried them yet but I keep thinking about it. As a survival food, insects could be all one could catch, depending on where you were. I think it would be good to know how to prepare them in case you had to survive on them.

Here is a little advise from
Eatbug.com.

As many mealworms as you can sanely eat
Open mouth. Insert live mealworms. Chew. Swallow.

You can eat almost every kind of edible insect raw; however, this method of eating insects should only be performed on insects that you keep yourself or know are free from pesticides. Do not snag passing cockroaches, ants, or termites in an urban area unless you have developed a natural immunity to pesticides. And don't forget to wash your insects before eating them!



I am finding a ton of information on eating insects but so far it all seems to be centered around a home cooked meal or snack rather than as a survival situation.

Another site if anyone cares:
Insects as food

Neal
 
Hmmm... I've never eaten insects on purpose. If I had to, I would probably grind them up and use them as a thickener for a stew or something.

On another point, the average human eats about 5 kg of bugs in their life whether they like it or not. I heard a radio show on it one night- for example, not everything small and black in your coffe grinds are coffe grinds. There are specific allowed levels of bug parts for each kind of food, and they're not in ppm- more at whole percentage numbers.
 
It's true; I knew someone indirectly who's job was to look through a microscope and count bug parts in ketchup. There's bug parts in almost all the processed foods we eat!
 
Originally posted by SteelDriver
It's true; I knew someone indirectly who's job was to look through a microscope and count bug parts in ketchup. There's bug parts in almost all the processed foods we eat!
Click to expand...

As the saying goes, what you don't know, won't hurt you.....
 
I have seen "Bee Butter" for sale commercially, but have yet to try it. I think bees are cool. I like honey. I've even looked into beekeeping a little bit. I don't think I could eat them.

My single voluntary bug-eating experience was on a rough-it weekend, where we made bug-broth with a mess of ants we found in the firewood. We stewed them with a bunch of fresh greens, hoping to cover the taste and texture. The result was a gritty "spinach soup".
It was nasty. Noses were held, no chewing was done, but I believe everyone kept it down. I cannot honestly say that I know what they would have tasted like. Someday, I may give them another chance, but it's not on my list of short-term goals.

About the bug bits in processed food: I wonder if Kosher foods have tighter controls? Bugs are definitely "unclean beasts", so, are they eliminated from the food, or simply "blessed by the Rabbi" into insignificance? I mean no disrespect, I am genuinely curious. :)
 
I've eaten nightcrawlers when i was a kid... and i ate a junebug a few nights ago (kinda drunk when i did it). If you want a list of what to eat and how to prepare it, you should go grab one of those SAS wilderness survival guide, i think they are out of print, but you should still be able to grab one somewhere i'm sure.
 
How timely!

http://news.excite.com/odd/article/id/331338|oddlyenough|06-06-2003::11:25|reuters.html

Cambodians Step Out for Start of Cricket Season
Jun 6, 11:07 am ET

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - There may be plenty of nets, catchers and the odd appeal over bad light, but the start of the Cambodian cricket season has little to do with bats and balls.
Instead, villagers in the deeply impoverished southeast Asian nation are rushing into the fields to snare the hopping insects, hatching in the millions at the start of the rainy season.

Flash-fried with garlic and salt, crickets, spiders, water-beetles and a host of other creepy-crawlies are choice delicacies in Cambodia.

Many say their culinary potential was first discovered by starving peasants during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-communist regime held responsible for the genocide of the "Killing Fields" in which 1.7 million are thought to have died. Using high-powered ultra-violet lights, cricketers in the central province of Kompong Thom, Cambodia's "Home of Crickets," lure the unsuspecting insects into pits dug in the fields. They are then scooped up and sold in markets across the land.

Newspapers said on Friday 2003 looked like a bumper year, although oversupply had sent cricket prices tumbling from about 1,000 riel ($0.25) per kg to just 200.
 
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Originally posted by sherlockbonez
If you want a list of what to eat and how to prepare it, you should go grab one of those SAS wilderness survival guide, i think they are out of print, but you should still be able to grab one somewhere i'm sure.
---------------

Insects as a food source are covered on pages 117-119 in the Collins Gem pocket version of the SAS Survival Guide, available from Brigade Quartermaster here for about $10 USD.
 
A friend of mine spent the first few years of her life as an orphan in Korea, the daughter of an American soldier and a Korean woman. She was an outcast.

Her only source of protein was grasshoppers. She would catch them and string them onto a weed by the little loop that stuck off their backs. Once she had ehough sher would slide them off live into a hot covered frying pan to roast. Once they stopped chattering around I the hot pan she would strip off the wings and legs and eat them roasted golden brown.

Here in Brazil the indians up north eat large tarantula spiders. They roast them in a leaf and carefully scrape off the hairs. They then give the roasted spider a good slap in the palm of the hand to separate the meat from the exoskeleton. The meat is white and tastes like crab, or so they say. Mac
 
I went to a PowWow in Arizona once and some Cherry-Cow Apaches were selling cicada-acorn soup. It was quite good. They collected the cicadas after they emerged from the ground but before they shed. The bugs were very shrimp-like. The acorns were ground, leached (I assume as they were not very bitter), and made into dumplings. Add to all that the flavor of the wood fire it was cooked on and it was a meal worth paying for.
 
I ate live meal worms once. I bought them for my iguana at the time.

Hmm I did it on a dare but they weren't that bad. I just swallowed em whole :barf:
 
I've eaten lots of different types of bugs, all raw. Some were good, some were great, and others I got down without much joy. :~}

My favorite is a type of wood-burrowing grub we get around here. Whenever I split my Winter firewood I keep my eyes open for the grubs. They're kind of squishy (obviously) but taste like a nut of some sort. I imainge that if I could get a lot of them at one time and fry them up they'd be really good. I'd reallly likke to try Suri and Witchety grubs.

I've also had ants, and ant larvae. The best place to find ants enough to eat is under a big rock or log. I once turned over a 4x8 sheet of plywood that was sitting in my bottom pasture for about a year, and under it was a whole ant colony. I managed to snag quite a few larvae before the adults managed to get them underground. I also got quite a few adults as well, which gave a nice "mixed texture" and taste to them. :~}

I had a worm ONCE, and it wasn't any good. Too gritty and full of dirt, even though I had washed off all the outer dirt. But since they eat dirt, you're going to be eating it as well, should worms be a major source of protien. I've also had crickets, grasshoppers and moths. Definitely take off the back legs of 'hoppers and crickets; those barbs can catch in your throat.

Some bugs actually taste darn good, and have a lot of protein. But the biggest reason to eat bugs NOW, when you don't have to, is to get over your phobias so that it's possible to eat them when you really HAVE to. In a survival situation, when youre near-starving, is no time to get over your squeamishness.
 
MacHete asked:
About the bug bits in processed food: I wonder if Kosher foods have tighter controls? Bugs are definitely "unclean beasts", so, are they eliminated from the food, or simply "blessed by the Rabbi" into insignificance? I mean no disrespect, I am genuinely curious.
Click to expand...

Here is a clip of information I found, I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of it.

Ancient records contain many references to Entomophagy. In the Old Testament we find Leviticus 11:20-23 clearly setting out which insects may, and may not, be eaten in the Mosaical diet. Locusts and grasshoppers were perfectly Kosher then, as now.
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I will pass on this bit of info on potential hazards but take special note of the last sentence. Like its some kind of disclaimer. It came from a long article that was about people eating bugs from way back when until now. Guess they didnt know there were hazards.

Potential hazards

Some insects secrete toxins, produce toxic metabolites or sequester toxic chemicals from foodplants (Blum, 1978; Duffey, 1980; Wirtz, 1984). Defensive secretions that may be reactive, irritating or toxic include carb- oxylic acids, alcohols, aldehydes, alkaloids, ketones, esters, lactones, phenols, 1,4-quinones, hydrocarbons and steroids, among others. Phytochemicals sequestered by various insects include simple phenolics, flavin, tannins, terpenoids, polyacetylenes, alkaloids, cyanogens, glucosinolates and mimetic amino acids. Insects are also a source of injectant, ingestant, contactant and inhalant allergens (Wirtz, 1984; Gorham, 1991 ), and some insects serve as vectors or passive intermediate hosts of vertebrate pathogens such as bacteria, protozoa, viruses or helminths (Gorham, 1991). More attention should be directed toward assessing these risk factors in the edible insect groups. The long history of human use suggests, however, with little evidence to the contrary, that the insects intentionally harvested for human consumption do not pose any significant health problem.

Neal
 
Ive eaten bugs , well I supose they classify as bugs ,
Wtchety grubs , about two inches long and 3/4 thick , white and taste kind of like nuts depending what tree roots you pull them out of , just pull the heads off and chew . If you dont think about it , its actualy pretty good.



Its good to go tribal for a while
 
I think if I found myself in a long term situation like a prison camp or truly stranded on a desert island that I would eat every bug I could get my hands on. It just makes sense to get over the squeamishness and chow down.

What's the easiest way to catch grashoppers/crickets without expending more energy than they are worth? I imagine grubs and larvae are pretty much there for the digging/collecting. Mac
 
AND FOLLOWING THIS THREAD WITH INTEREST. JUST FOUND THIS INTERESTING SITE http://ic.net/~tbailey/Primitive.html IT HAS ALL SORTS OF STUFF INCLUDING AN INSECT NEWS LETTER LINK. I HAVE HAD OPPORTUNITIES TO EAT JUST ABOUT EVERY INSECT KNOWN TO MAN, MOSTLY IN HONG KONG AND THAILAND AND I GOTTA TELL YA. WILL ONLY DO IF THE ABSOLUTE NEED ARISES. IT JUST AINT APPEALING:barf: ANYWAY I HOPE THIS HELPS AND BEST OF LUCK TO YOU ALL.:)

TIM
 
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