# Why not eat Insects? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 29, 2011, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139 "2011-04-29T09:57:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/21 "2011-04-29T16:06:58Z")
I would totally eat them, if, like others have said, you make them look different. I don’t have to deal with the whole cow. The closest I’ve ever gotten to such a thing was getting a delicious chicken from Chinatown with the feet still on, and you bet your ass I didn’t chop them off myself. If you make patties out of them or steaks I’ll eat them. ---
**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:** [April 29, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/22 "2011-04-29T16:15:40Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Too little. You need a bunch to make a decent meal. > > Ever year NJI gets invaded by little brown ants that smell like bananas when I crush them. I image about a million of them would make a good meringue pie. That’s the point of Harris’ _optimal foraging theory_, which I cite in my long post above. Of course, if there was nothing else to eat – no cow or chicken nearby, then it starts to make sense to start gathering your insects. Dave Barry, in his book **Dave Barry Does Japan** , tells about eating at one Japanese restaurant where they cook individual things on skewers, and shout out what it is as they give them to you. He was startled when, after taking a bite of it, the cook yelled (in English) “Cricket!” The points are that 1.) He didn’t know what it was beforehand, so insect muscle _can_ appear similar to other meats, if smaller. It’s not goopy “bug juice” 2.) It wasn’t until after they shouted this that he began to feel queasy. Insect is arguably fine, if you don’t know what it is. Both of the authors I cite say that most insect is actually pretty bland. I note that Gordon spices up his dishes quite a bit. If that’s all true, I might actually be persuaded to try appropriately-spiced large insect. Teriyaki Cricket, perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/23 "2011-04-29T16:19:22Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Yeah and I’d be tasked with the slaughter of my own food if I raised them myself. Takes too much time. If there was a restaurant that served bugmeat-burgers, I’d probably try them and like them well enough. > > Also are you supposed to eat the whole thing? Wings and legbones and eyes, or whatever? Or are you supposed to separate the meat from the rest? Sounds like sitting and shelling peanuts as you eat them, except then you need to cook them. Way too big a pain in the ass. Based on what I remember from my US Army survival manual which had a wealth of information on eating creepy-crawlies, one plucks off the wings, legs, and head. All the “good stuff” is in the thorax and abdomen. Kind of like peel and eat shrimp, one supposes. ---
**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:** [April 29, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/24 "2011-04-29T16:28:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Also are you supposed to eat the whole thing? Wings and legbones and eyes, or whatever? Or are you supposed to separate the meat from the rest? Sounds like sitting and shelling peanuts as you eat them, except then you need to cook them. Way too big a pain in the ass. Harris insists a lot of that chitin is good roughage, but then he describes people peeling off the carapaces and simply eating the meat within. were I given the choice, I’d pull off the exoskeleton – eating it makes as much sense as eating the “rind” on a pineapple (which I’ve done, BTE) . And I notice that Gordon usually peels his insects, too, sometimes using the shell simply as a garnish. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/25 "2011-04-29T16:28:44Z")
For the people who point out that eating insects is no different from eating crabs or lobster, I will point out: I don’t eat those things, either, _precisely_ because they’re so roach-like. That said, I’d be willing to try small insects, fried or deep-fried. I’m down with crunchy or crispy. Even a hint of it being cream-filled, though - or even of insect-muscle texture - squicks me out. Little crunchy grasshoppers, I’d try. Now that I think about it, I ate a termite in Costa Rica when our guide pointed them out. (He also pointed out that you have to crush them thoroughly before swallowing, since they can survive stomach acid. I didn’t feel like finding out firsthand if he was playing “Pull the gringo’s leg.”) The termite was, I am happy to report, okay to eat. It was also the size of a bread crumb, though, and that helped. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/26 "2011-04-29T16:36:17Z")
In my wilderness survival training course, I was taught to forage for food. One of the easiest foods to find in late summer in the South is grasshopper. You don’t even have to cook them. You catch them, rip off the back legs and swallow them like a pill. When you are \*really \*hungry, you will eat anything. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/27 "2011-04-29T17:07:27Z")
Plenty of people eat insects. Flying termites and bee larvae are good enough to be in the “yeah, I’d eat that again” category. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/28 "2011-04-29T17:22:56Z")
We use insects to make certain [food dyes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal), don’t we? ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/29 "2011-04-30T00:22:15Z")
Food taboos are a difficult thing to get over. I’m a pretty adventurous eater, and I often tell myself that I would love to try insects. I actually have eaten chocolate covered crickets and mealworms, but when I did, all I could taste was the chocolate. (Although I did like the aftertaste of crickets better than the rather barnyardy mealworms.) But then, I remembered when I had a yen to find out what cat food tasted like. Purely research, you know. So I began with the rather innocuous dry cat food nugget. But I had real problems putting that cat food bit in my mouth. I was just holding it, looking at it, and something inside me said ‘no fucking way’. I really had to fight myself to eat it. I put it in my mouth and chewed. It really didn’t taste like anything, it was so dry. Then all of a sudden, I started gagging and spitting and scraping the bits from my teeth with my fingernails. And I can’t say that it tasted bad, because it didn’t taste like anything. I flushed out my mouth with water, and never even tried wet cat food. My whole reaction was totally out of proportion to how the thing tasted. It was purely psychological. But why? I was willing to try it, I love my cats, and I don’t consider them filthy at all, and intellectually, I know cat food is made from the same stuff as people food. I’ve never understood my reaction to my little experiment. Is this a class thing among species or what? Cats are animals, and are beneath us, so therefore their food is disgusting? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/30 "2011-04-30T00:51:10Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I guess insects aren’t any uglier than shrimps, crabs, crayfish, or lobsters. I keep telling people this, i won’t eat any of those things either. A lobster looks like a gigantic cockroach to me. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/31 "2011-04-30T00:52:50Z")
Insects? No thanks. But everybody has eat honey, isn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/32 "2011-04-30T01:04:02Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > But everybody has eat honey, isn’t? Huh, what? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/33 "2011-04-30T01:10:54Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I keep telling people this, i won’t eat any of those things either. A lobster looks like a gigantic cockroach to me. Well, I think that goes back to what I said above (a steak doesn’t look like a cow.) consider shrimp. They look just as much like giant bugs as lobsters, but I’d wager that the vast majority of shrimp-consuming people only ever see the shelled and cleaned tails. If you plopped a pile of whole shrimp on their plates, they’d probably retch. As for the comments about “goopy bug juice,” don’t many/most insects lack a closed circulatory system? It’s as much of a stumbling block as, say, animal-blood based foods. Tell your average Joe what’s in black pudding or kiszka and they’d tell you to get it as far away from them as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/34 "2011-04-30T01:15:35Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Insects? No thanks. > But everybody has eat honey, isn’t? > [@the lone cashew](#): > > Huh, what? Yes, always good to eat your little honey. 😃 Thailand seems to be famous for bug-eating, but that’s really only in the Northeast, traditionally the poorest region. You’ll often find bug carts in Bangkok in areas where migrants from the Northeast are found, such as construction sites and Western-oriented bars (the vast majority of these bargirls are from the Northeast, as opposed to, say, the Thai-oriented bars and brothels, which attract girls from the non-bug-eating North, due to Thai men’s preference for that physical type). A good source of protein. I ate at a local restaurant in northeastern China once, in Jilin province on the North Korean border, that specialized in local fare, especially as served during the Cultural Revolution. All bugs and weird slimy-looking creatures. The small scorpions were buttery and not bad, but the silk worms were awful. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/35 "2011-04-30T01:17:52Z")
> [@the lone cashew](#): > > Huh, what? Honey is made by bees! And bees are insects. So most western people don’t like to eat insects but they aren’t that afraid about eating a product of an insect :eek: Anyways, I would say, it depends on the **KIND** of insect. I bet most people could be convinced to eat grasshoppers or other insects that look like shrimps or crabs… But nobody would try a fried speeder, or a roasted cochrache :eek: In my case, the only arthropodes I’ll try are shrimps, crabs and other products from rivers and seas.😃 ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/36 "2011-04-30T01:19:08Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > But everybody has eat honey, isn’t? > [@the lone cashew](#): > > Huh, what? it’s bee puke ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/37 "2011-04-30T03:33:40Z")
ahem… I have done no googling or homework on this topic. That being said, I totally agree with several points made here. -Why not insects? Sounds like if we could mass produce a live/freshly killed market base, we could have the next Starbugs here (Sorry, couldn’t resist). Would you like a smoothie? -This is one of the myriad of reasons (but not the only one) I don’t eat lobster, etc. They look buggy like. But I have eaten some bugs before, and they ain’t bad. They don’t taste like much. Then again, I prefer my food bland. -What about toxic insects? Some folks have severe allergic reactions to certain insects (I’m thinking Texas Fire Ants here, or maybe beestings.) Can one eat the entire insect and swallow the toxic/poison gland and be okay? Or does this way lead to the E/R? -I remember one species of ant has a natural predator (spore? worm?) that infects their brain and destroys them from the inside out within a week. What if we ate that? Or something that was infected and brought to market during the incubation period - It passes FDA inspection but along the way the predator maturates and becomes toxic.) What if we ate an infected insect? Do species infestation work across species? (I think some do, but not all. \*Trichinosis \*and \*Clostridium \*come to my mind.) -My army training taught me that you can swallow bugs whole if you don’t mind the “crawly” feeling on the way down (or the legs kicking, depending upon the size of the critter, because some can grow pretty honking big in the jungle). For potentially dangerous buggies, it’s either cut off one third (either between the head and thorax or thorax and abdomen) and wait until the dangerous side dies (Eat the head first if it has got a stinger; eat the abdomen first if it has pinchers on the head). ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/38 "2011-04-30T03:44:53Z")
Insects are eaten in countries all over the world. In many countries, however, there is a stigma against them because of their associations with disease, their appearance, and the fact that the payoff just isn’t really worth it. Food is cheap enough that we don’t have to resort to eating insects for protein. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/39 "2011-04-30T03:58:52Z")
Shrimp are the cockroaches of the sea. There are roaches big as shrimp in many localities- and dull colored insects are said to be tastiest. By the way- that dark vein in a shrimp? It ain’t a vein. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139/40 "2011-04-30T05:46:04Z")
TOTALLY! We have a Shrimp night at our local American Legion lodge on the first of every month. EVERYBODY eats shrimp. Mamma makes it. She cooks all night. It’s a lot of food, it’s available for take out and it’s cheap. I never go. When we started it, I told everybody what that stripe was. Nobody wanted to stop eating long enough to hear what I was saying. I just quit and let 'em go. They have traditions. I can respect that. But I don’t have to participate. Doesn’t every legion have a “mamma?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-eat-insects/580139.md?page=3)