Eating Bugs any suggestions?

The following suggestions are not recommendations made from personal experience:

Earthworms or Slugs, safe to eat cooked or raw
Grubs (insect larvae) or Maggots, safe to eat cooked or raw
Ants, safe to eat cooked or raw (make sure they are dead if you eat them raw, they bite!)
Grasshoppers, cooked (carry parasites) and pull the legs off (barbed)

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General rule: avoid insects with 8 or more legs, fine hair or bright colors
No Ticks, Flies, Mosquitoes, etc.
Centipedes, Spiders, Scorpions, not safe to eat (because they use poison to capture prey) ???

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Hope I don't have to find out what any of those options taste like raw.
Ugh. Worse then Oysters ... Gross.

I was always kind of bummed I didnt grow up eating insects as a regular thing. It's kind of hard to get into as an adult unless you're starving and even then it's freaky.

Insect diner Santa Monica

Insect restaurants in London

I really should make a conscious effort to get over this bias of the pallet.

reply to post by LadySkadi


i wouldnt eat raw maggots straight from a rotting corpse, maybe give them a little boil just to make sure.

Cooking is advisable, since parasites of concern may be present. But pesticide use can make insects unsuitable for human consumption. Herbicides can accumulate in insects through bio-accumulation. For example when locust outbreaks are treated by spraying, people can no longer eat them. This may pose a problem since edible plants have been consumed by the locusts themselves.

Cases of lead poisoning after consumption of chapulines (grasshoppers) were reported by the California Department of Health Services in November 2003. Adverse allergic reactions are also a possible hazard.

I would starve to death, literally die, before I could eat bugs.

sometimes you eat the bugs
sometimes the bugs eat you


One good thing about the idea of eating bugs
upon thinking about it,
I decided to learn about as many other things to eat as I could.

I was showing art at an underground art festival called Art Outside where one morning I came upon a fellow Austinite who happened to be a bug eating guru. He had a propane stove set up and was giving a lesson on eating bugs. Needless to say, I was persuaded into eating living mealworms and cooked grasshoppers... No joke,

This man had a serious passion for eating bugs, I had no idea they were such rich sources for natural fats and lipids.. In a survival situation I would eat them without hesitation.

Found a updated bug eating blog: Link

I think I might make this a belated New Years Resolution.

I'll start small. Like a meal a month. I can see myself dreading that meal all month long

I watched an episode of Survivor Man with Les Stroud and he said to avoid black bugs. anything black.

not sure why, but probably because the majority of black bugs are poisonous or carry parasites (flies)

reply to post by LadySkadi


STOP

DO NOT tell people to eat ants. Many are allergic to them w/o knowing it and can BECOME allergic depending on intake level.

reply to post by rebeldog


Those were *general suggestions. Research this or the consequences are on you!

*general you.

For earthworms I personally suggest nightcrawlers, over the leaf work variety.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

I'll start small. Like a meal a month. I can see myself dreading that meal all month long

This what I think I am going to do after I get passed the whole idea of it!

I am probably going to start with candy since it is readily available where I am at, then move on to bigger and better things. This whole idea makes me feel kinda queasy, but my take on this is if SHTF you got to do what you got to do in order to survive.

Great ideas everyone!

[color=dodgerblue]
My biology professor told us a story about how she served chocolate chip and meal worm cookies to her colleagues.

She didn't tell them about the worms until after they ate the cookies.

Confession time - I started eating bugs as a kid then later I got in to teaching survival skills and got serious about it.
They are a great food source but it seems personal bias would allow many to starve which is a shame.
The fact is we all eat bugs everyday without even realizing it.
The FDA sets limits on how many insect parts are allowed in processed foods.

I was getting ready to actually start a thread on this subject so here's what I've come up with thus far:

Which ones are safe to eat?
All insects should be cooked to avoid parasites though many are safe to eat raw.

Ants, eggs and larvae - many have poison stingers but cooking renders it harmless
Beetles & grubs - avoid any beetle with bright red, yellow or orange coloration. Most black beetles are safe to eat except the blister beetle which contains cantharidin (also known as Spanish fly).
Termites, eggs and larvae have more protein, fat and calories by weight than beef.
Earthworms - little trick to them: Hold one end and squeeze gently while sliding your fingers down to eliminate the stuff in their digestive tract.
Crickets, cicadas & grasshoppers - roast to kill parasites and tear off the legs as the barbs will hook in to your intestinal wall. They have 2x - 3x the protein of beef by weight.
Cockroaches
Slugs and snails
Aquatic insects - dobsonfly, mayfly, caddisfly, water beetles, etc. - the only danger here is from polluted water.
Tarantulas - roasted. Eaten by many indigenous peoples.Most spiders should be avoided.
Scorpions - edible once stinger and poison gland in tail is removed.
Maggots - not only are they edible, they can be used to clean abscessed and festering wounds. They also help prevent the growth of scar tissue.

Insects and invertebrates to be avoided:
Bees - larvae are edible
Wasps
Caterpillars
True bugs (Hemiptera) - (aquatic species are edible) - resemble beetles somewhat but only have 2 body parts to the beetle's 3.
Butterflies
Moths

Fun Facts:
The soldier caste of leaf cutters ants are used to close cuts by jungle tribes. They allow them to bite, closing the wound then bite the body off.
Louis Armstrong reportedly said that as a child if he got sick his mother would make cockroach broth. That would make many of us want to get well quick!
Some allied POW's survived captivity by the Japanese by eating cockroaches since they were only fed rice.
Aztecs prized ears of corn that had corn screw worms in them more than regular ears.
The word "Medicine" owes it's origin to the honeybee, having the same root as the word "Mead", an alcoholic drink derived from fermented honey.
Crushed ladybird beetles (ladybugs) are a folk remedy for toothache.
Honeybee stings have been used as a folk cure for arthritis.
Native American tribes would burn the grass when large infestations of grasshoppers were present, thus killing and cooking them at the same time.

In my opinion the best way to eat bugs is after the fish that ate them has turned them into protein in the fish. Raise yellow perch and talapia in an aquaponic system and then eat the fish that eat the bugs and grow vegetables and fruits from the nitrogen in the fish waste. The bugs are the added energy to the system other than the Sun.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


That was exactly what I was looking for!

Thank you so much for the input AtA!