Eat the bugs

Jack Deatherage

(12/2023) Every now and again some talking head I follow on the YouTube gets going on a topic I'm skeptical of. One of my favorite guys "complaining on the internet" has warned multiple times, "You'll live in the pod and eat bugs!" Which is not that strange a prediction given the guy is heavily into futuristic, Utopian (Dystopian) video games and science fiction flicks that have humans contentedly, or not, crunching away on meal worms and roaches, or slurping a slurry of mashed bugs. Probably maggots, as I recall one of my French teachers telling us "minds full of mush" that she enjoyed them- mashed. Slowcoach though I am, I did eventually get curious enough to take a quick glance at "eating bugs".

A Google search immediately vomits up a plethora of pro-bug eating articles ranging from international magazines, newspapers and universities studies- all touting the "save the planet" climate change bull stuff, and/or promoting sustainability, onto the nutritional benefits of eatin' the bugs and one NPR article, "How a conspiracy theory about eating bugs made its way to international politics".

Hmmm... if NPR is mocking someone I'm generally well served to take a closer look. But first I have to check out Marina, the library patron's access site to all public libraries in Maryland.

Some of the books I requested:

"Man Eating Bugs, the art and science of eating insects" (1998)

"Bugs For Lunch" (1999)

"Bug Stew!" (2003) (Children)

"Diet for a Changing Climate, food for thought" (2019)

"Edible, an adventure into the world of eating insects and the last great hope to save the planet" (2014)

"13 Ways to Eat a Fly" (2021) (Juvenile)

"Project Startup, eat bugs" (2021) (Juvenile)

"Bugs For Breakfast, how eating insects could help save the planet" (2022) (Children)

Jumping back to YouTube, I find a mix of videos either attempting to startle viewers, or convince them to eat bugs. To add to the confusion, A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) computers are now being used to create fake videos so it's quite possible the young, attractive starlets and celebs aren't really crunching meal worms to entice children and Kool-Aid drinking adults (hat tip to the great propagandist/manipulator Jim Jones) into accepting a diet of insects.

Obviously, the "eat bugs" propaganda effort is well under way. Surprisingly, I'm cool with it. The same way I'm cool with vegetarianism. I try to only eat meat that only ate plants. I'll happily eat bugs via chickens, turkeys and fish. Or, after watching a video about black soldier flies being raised in composting bins, I'll gleefully add the compost- including the flies decomposed bodies -to the garden soil. Yep. I'm all for being an indirect bug eater.

I also stumbled upon a few websites selling processed foods like the old standby I recall hearing about when I was knee high to a grasshopper- chocolate covered ants. Other sites were offering whole dried crickets, meal worms and other critters that can be commercially raised and harvested. Several websites intrigued me with offerings of dried, powdered insects for adding protein to baked goods. While bug powders are being promoted and consumed in Asian countries, England is making headway in the game as is Canada, none of which surprises me. Nor am I surprised that Amazon has a decent selection of cricket powders as well as dried whole crickets.

A deeper dive into Amazon -the commercial site, not the river or region which likely has more things that would eat me than I'd ever consider eating -pukes up scorpions, house crickets, black crickets, grasshoppers, silkworm pupae and sago worm pupae. Not being particularly smart, I dove deeper- earthworm jerky, male rhino beetles and zebra tarantula are also available from American companies.

Yep, the thought of eating bugs sets off alarms- a gut level reaction. However, I once walked out of H-Mart with a can of silkworm pupae to test someone's claim they were willing to eat any "food" at least once. Turns out that food wasn't one they could get past their nose. Perhaps had the critters been dry?

Still, I've eaten crepes made from flour that had weevil "maggots" in it and I once ate a chicken noodle soup one of my grandmothers made from scratch. I can still see the adult weevils floating among the herbs she seasoned it with. Dad made me eat it anyhow. Miraculously, I didn't die, though one website suggested I might have under certain circumstances.

Apparently people with seafood allergies, specifically shellfish, also react badly to attempting to digest insects whose exoskeletons are made of the same, or similar substance as shrimp, crab and lobster shells. Oddly, that little tidbit turned up way down the list of "eat bugs" websites in a Google search. Digging a bit deeper. Why do I always have to dig deeper to find the pertinent information? I also learned that some bugs need to be made safe by removing those body parts that have hooks, spines and spikes that might not digest and lodge in the intestines causing possible havoc requiring serious medical attention.

Obviously my dad's admonition "Junior! Slow down, you're not going to a fire" applies more to eating bugs than it did to my wolfing down whatever was on my plate so I could escape back to the fields, ditches and cricks. How much weevil infested flour did he consume during the Great Depression, or during the war years when he was a crew member of a bomber over Germany? Did he know to chew each mouthful of food at least fourteen times to crush any insect to a digestible paste?

Other ponderables come to mind. I haven't stumbled upon any vegan website proclaiming the horror of raising and slaughtering tens of millions of lifeforms solely to feed us monkey-people. Of course I haven't heard vegans lamenting the destruction of entire ecosystems to grow their soybean and kale either. Hypocrisy much?

Am I going to have to take off my glasses to read the fine print ingredients list on everything I buy so when making cookies for the librarians I don't accidentally add flour that's been "enriched" with cricket powder- listed as "acheta protein" or simple "acheta". Given the librarians reactions when I mentioned adding insect powder to my baking experiments I don't think I'll be dumping bread or cookies off at the library after I begin adding that ingredient. Which will happen once the price of the stuff drops to something affordable -when the bulk of Americans are eating bugs.

Back to one of NPR's propagandist, "As far as we know, no government makes anyone eat bugs."

The educated response is, "Yet."

History is replete with examples of governments suppressing Natural Rights, enacting unfunded mandates and encouraging their citizens to, or forcing them to, commit horrid atrocities. Eating bugs will be a minor mandate when the time comes.

Fake meat concocted from plants in a factory or grown from animal cells in a laboratory, crunchy crickets, crispy meal worms, dried tarantulas, canned silkworm pupae, oh my!

As the snail eaters say, Bon appétit!