# Have any of you weirdos tried eating bugs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [July 10, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710 "2025-07-10T19:55:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Frilly\_Heck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90ced4/32.png) [@Frilly\_Heck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frilly_Heck)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/21 "2025-07-10T21:32:11Z")
I’ve consumed the occasional bug whilst on the bike (the pedal kind in my case). Can’t say they were too good, but it’s one of the reasons I feel like I could be bold enough to eat them deliberately. ---
**Author:** ![Frilly\_Heck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90ced4/32.png) [@Frilly\_Heck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frilly_Heck)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/22 "2025-07-10T21:34:22Z")
Is that your blog, or someone else’s? Either way, it looks like I would enjoy reading it. Thanks for the link! ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/23 "2025-07-10T21:39:08Z")
My favourite dance is decadance 😉 It was a present, and I liked it. Gold is inert, you just shit it afterwards. Have you ever shat gold? I have 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Frilly\_Heck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90ced4/32.png) [@Frilly\_Heck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frilly_Heck)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/24 "2025-07-10T21:41:04Z")
You have some fun present-givers in your life, it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/25 "2025-07-10T21:44:40Z")
Mud-bugs(crawdaddies) are about as adventurous as I can get. Anyway, mealworms and crickets ain’t on my diet..yeah, I’m going with that. ---
**Author:** ![Frilly\_Heck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90ced4/32.png) [@Frilly\_Heck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frilly_Heck)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/26 "2025-07-10T21:45:13Z")
Crawdaddies are good eating! ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/27 "2025-07-10T21:45:37Z")
Love 'em! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/28 "2025-07-10T23:05:53Z")
Thats my old website. It’s a bit broken - most of my content is on youtube these days ---
**Author:** ![Frilly\_Heck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90ced4/32.png) [@Frilly\_Heck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frilly_Heck)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/29 "2025-07-10T23:08:41Z")
Ah. I personally prefer reading blogs to watching YT, but I will probably check out both. I enjoy that type of content. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/30 "2025-07-10T23:56:21Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Fried silkworm pupae were just dry and not very interesting. The ones I had in China were sort of the consistency of mashed potatoes in the middle (which I tried not to think about too closely). ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/31 "2025-07-11T00:08:45Z")
I eat Escargot regularly. They delicious! ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/32 "2025-07-11T07:00:42Z")
Son-of-a-wrek swears he’s swallowed the worm in a bunch of 5ths of tequila. But he doesn’t remember it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/33 "2025-07-11T11:08:07Z")
These are a (relatively) local delicacy I’ve had a couple times: > **[Gonimbrasia belina | As food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonimbrasia_belina#As_food)** > > Mopane worms are hand-picked in the wild, often by women and children. In the bush, the caterpillars are not considered to belong to the landowner (if any), but around a house, permission should be sought from the resident. Chavanduka describes women in Zimbabwe tying a piece of bark to particular trees to establish ownership, or moving the young caterpillars to trees nearer home. When the caterpillar has been picked, it is pinched at the tail end to rupture the innards. The picker then squeez Th... ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/34 "2025-07-11T11:20:49Z")
How were they prepared, how did they taste, and did you like it? ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/35 "2025-07-11T11:43:10Z")
Many times. Crickets, mealworms, roasted tarantula, grubs grilled on a stick, termites, honeypot ants, black soldierflies, and more. Disclaimer: I am an entomologist. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/36 "2025-07-11T11:57:08Z")
> Have any of you weirdos tried eating bugs? Not _deliberately_, no… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/37 "2025-07-11T12:29:13Z")
I haven’t, but one of these days I might. I recommend two books: **Good to Eat** (AKA **The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig** ) by anthropologist Marvin Harris. Harris championed a research philosophy called “Cultural Materialism”, which examines foodways in light of. According to him, lots of different cultures ate insects, especially if the work expended justified the calories received. Although we tend to think of bugs as bags of goop (think Bear Gryllz biting into a grub, or Trevor Noah describing eating caterpillars when growing up poor), most of the insects people eat contain lots of muscle tissue – think grasshoppers, with those powerful legs. Gatheric a lot of ants or termites takes a lot of effort and gets you a lot of indigestible chitin, but if a swarm of locusts has eaten the bulk of your grain crop, and they’re lying on the ground torpid afterwards, it makes a lot of sense to gather up the locusts when the gettin’ is good, roasting them, and eating them for all that edible muscle. **The Eat -a-Bug Cookbook** by David George Gordon. I saw this book at the Squam Lakes Nature Center in New Hampshire and had to pick it up. Gordon is an apostle of bug eating, and the title of this book is no joke – he really does give you detailed recipes for “sky prawns” and the like, with appetizing photos of the results. He also gives lectures and classes on this. According to his book, he REALLY wanted to eat a Giant Bird-Eating Spider from South America. He was lucky enough to get someone to ship him a dead specimen, packed in dry ice, but the ice all evaporated before he got it, and it was spoiled. He still gives the recipe in his book, which starts with an instruction to break off the giant poison fangs with pliers. According to Harris, the biggest problem with most bugs is that most don’t have much flavor. He claims that giant spiders do, however, comparing the taste of one to “concentrated Gorgonzola Cheese”. Another problem, surprisingly, is that insects are high in fat. You can always claim not to be eating bugs because you’re on a diet. Another problem is that some insects are high in acids (ants are full of foric acid) or other substances (centipedes and millipedes are strongly contraindicated, despite the large number of drumsticks) Oddly enough, I just had a long conversation on this topic last weekend with another bug enthusiast at a picnic. No bugs were served. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/38 "2025-07-11T13:21:22Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I have no qualms about eating juicy multiple-bite bugs, when the bugs in question are lobsters or prawns. This is what I was going to say-- I eat bugs all the time! I made a delicious batch of shrimp fried rice just last night. Also I love lobster, and have eaten crawdads on occasion. Coincidentally, I watched this video that showed up in my YouTube feed just a few days ago. I’m used to seeing YT videos show up in my feed about a topic I recently read about in a SDMB thread, but getting a video related to a subject several days _before_ I read about it on the SDMB? Man, the YT algorithms are getting _ **good** _. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/bt7nC52GrmM/maxresdefault.jpg "Why we love crustaceans and fear insects (which are crustaceans)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt7nC52GrmM) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/39 "2025-07-11T14:03:28Z")
Salted and smoked. Mostly salty and smoky, like bits of dried fish. They were OK, ‘like’ is a stronger word than I’d use. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710/40 "2025-07-11T14:11:58Z")
I’ve often eaten and enjoyed crawfish. They may not technically be bugs, but I regard anything that’s a lawn pest as insectoid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-you-weirdos-tried-eating-bugs/1020710.md?page=3)