I just heard on the radio that they offered free tickets to an NSync concert to someone who would come to the studio and actually eat a worm!
Some woman did apparently(thankfully, I wasn’t watching on tv).
It sounds like a Howard Stern stunt, but:
how dangerous is it to eat a worm?
Any worries about diseases?
Would YOU eat a worm? For a concert?
On the Fox program “Guiness World Records” I saw a guy eat a whole plate of squirming earth worms like it was spaghetti. He said that he had done it before with no ill effects and that they didn’t tatse like anything. On a side note, I would think that the danger of eating worms would lie in what the worm had been eating prior to death. It’s guts could literally be full of manure and e. coli bacteria.
One of the best ways to raise earthworms is UNDER rabbits.
I won’t insult your intelligence by having you guess what they are eating.
So what keeps people and animals from digesting worms in their intestines like a tapeworm?
Now, i’m not gonna claim to know a whole lot about this subject, so this is basically an IMHO.
Earthworms would die in the stomach from the digestive acids that are there. They aren’t used to living in such an environment, so they pass away. Sorry for the pun. 
Where as Tapeworms are a different animal? all together. They thrive in such a place and are immune to such acids, hence the grow and florish.
Basically eating an Earthworm, i assume, wouldn’t be much different then eating a raw piece of steak. Red meat is Red meat?!? Just a WAG.
“It’s [the worm’s] guts could literally be full of manure and e. coli bacteria.” No doubt. However, that would not necessarily make it harmful to you. Most bacteria in manure (including most strains of E. coli) are not harmful to humans. Eating manure is only bad for you if it contains bacteria or viruses that are pathogenic (i.e., that harm humans). If the manure came from a healthy animal (i.e., one not bothered by a viral or bacterial infection), you could probably consume it safely. (Note: I say probably because there are some strains of bacteria that colonize some animals’ intestinal tracts without causing problems but that can make humans quite sick. Notorious examples are strains of Salmonellae in fowl and reptiles and strains of E. coli in cattle.)
“They thrive in such a place [the stomach] and are immune to such acids, hence the grow and florish.” Not precisely. Tapeworms can’t survive stomach acid. Fortunately (for them), they don’t have to. Only their eggs (or their cysticerci, a larval form) have to and their eggs (and cysticerci) are much sturdier than the adult forms are.
Thanks for correcting me. I knew i was wrong in some way or another.
Never claimed to be smart, i’d rather be fishing with those worms then eating them.
Tapeworms and other paracitic worms live in your intestine, not in you stomach. The intestine is not highly acidic like your stomach. The tapeworm has a tough shell or skin around its proglotid (egg sack) that allows it to pass through the stomach unharmed.
Examining poop for worms is part of my job so ask away.
michael
Regular earthworms, the kind you see when you’re spading up the garden, the kind that drown during thunderstorms and lie around on the sidewalk, eat decaying vegetable matter, like pieces of dead grass. The other kind of earthworm, however, popularly known as “red wigglers” and used for fishing bait, are also known in some circles as “manure worms” because they are most often found in manure piles. Guess what they eat. Well, that’s what horse and cow manure is, basically, is “dead grass”, just in a more processed form.
A tapeworm is not a “worm”.
The people who publish recipes for “worm cookies”, etc. always tell you two things. First, keep the worms you are going to use in damp shredded newspaper for a week or so before you incorporate them into any recipes. This is to give them a chance to excrete and clear their gut of whatever was in there.
Second, they always tell you to cook the worms somehow, either in “worm patties” or “cookies” or whatever.
I personally would not eat a raw worm, of either garden worm or manure worm variety, because of the bacterial hazards.
P.S. If you ever need to chop some worms up, it works better if you stick them in the freezer for an hour first.
Depends on what you wish to call a “worm”. There are three “worm” phyla:
nematoda - roundworms
platyhelminthes - flatworms
annelida - segmented worms
Tapeworms belong to platyhelminthes. Earthworms are annelids. And I seem to recall hearing about a “earthworm cookoff” somewhere. Now, I’ve eaten chocolate covered insects (not too bad - kind of like Nestle’s crunch), but I draw the line at worms … and I’d have serious reservations about witchety grubs (aboriginal foods have supposedly become chic in upscale Australian circles).
Haven’t you (or your children) ever read the book, “How to Eat Fried Worms” by Thomas Rockwell? It tells you all about how to eat them so they taste good. (This was one of my favorite books as a child!)
you should be tempted to eat a tapeworm, the solution is here;
http://www.colitz.com/site/11942/11942.htm
And while we’re on the subject, I read that one of the old patent medicines was a tapeworm in a pill for people who wanted to lose weight. It was guaranteed to work, but the true nature of the “cure” was not disclosed to the customer.
I searched Snopes and found nothing.
Anyboby else ever hear of this?
Peace,
mangeorge
I’ve heard that UL about the tapeworm diet-- it might have been in the illustrated “Big Book of Urban Legends”.
When I was in 1st grade I ate a number of playground earthworms (instant fear/respect/notoriety) and am still here to talk about it (very infrequently and only in the anonymity of message boards).
P.S. If you ever need to chop some worms up, it works better if you stick them in the freezer for an hour first.
This may be an error in judgement on my part, but do we want to know why you know this?