Go Eat a Bug!

by Aletheia Price

Your guide to post-Y2K cuisine

In all probability, you have never deliberately eaten an insect. However, you have probably inadvertently consumed over a pound of insects. Flour beetles, weevils, and other insects that infest granaries are milled along with the grain, ending up as tiny black specks in your bread. Small grubs and other insects can be found in your fruit and vegetables. Insects are especially common in canned and other processed food and in certain beverages.

I once toured an apple orchard and I asked the tour guide what they did with bug-infested apples. She told me that they use them to make cider: Waste not, want not!

Insects are not only beautiful, they are tasty. Really! Even if you are too squeamish to have them as a main dish, you can make insect flour and add it to bread and other dishes for a protein boost.

Many insects are lower in fat, higher in protein, and have a better feed-to-meat ratio than beef, lamb, pork, or chicken.

One hundred grams of cricket contains 121 calories, 12.9 grams of protein, 5.5 g. fat, 5.1 g. carbohydrates, 75.8 mg. calcium, 185.3 mg. phosphorous, 9.5 mg. iron, 0.36 mg. thiamine, 1.09 mg. riboflavin, and 3.10 mg. niacin. Ground beef contains more protein (23.5 g./100g.), but also has 288.2 calories and a whopping 21.2 grams of fat!

Insects are easy to raise. There's no manure-forking, no hay-bale-lifting, there are no veterinary bills. You can raise them in an apartment without getting complaints.

Most people do not mind butchering insects. The butchery of insects is very simple compared with that of a cow or pig, and nowhere near as gory. Also, as far as I know, no animal rights activists object to the eating of insects.

Raising insects is environmentally friendly. They require minimal space and are very low on the food chain. They have been used throughout human history (after all, it is easier to catch a grub than a mammoth). You don't need to destroy wildlife habitat to eat insects, and you can incorporate them into a recycling program: vegetable waste in, yummy insect protein out.

There are 1,462 recorded species of edible insects. Doubtless thousands more simply have not been tasted yet.

A short list of edible insects (besides the usual crickets and mealworms) includes waxworms, cockroaches, dragonflies, termites, ants, water beetles, cicadas, katydids, grasshoppers and locusts, bees, tomato hornworms, most types of beetle grubs, mopane worms and silkworms

How to cook your grub
Buy crickets or mealworms at your local pet store. Allow them to dine on fresh vegetables and grain for a day or so to purge their intestinal tracts. Crickets and mealworms are also often available at bait stores, and you can purchase insects in bulk from numerous mail order companies. Many people prefer to eat insects live and raw, and while it is true that you could probably get the most nutrients that way, I prefer food that won't crawl off my plate.

To prepare a batch of crickets or mealworms, rinse them off and then pat them dry. (This is easy to do with mealworms, but fairly hard to do with crickets. Pour crickets into a colander and cover it quickly with a piece of wire screening or cheesecloth. Rinse them, then dry them by shaking the colander.) Then put the crickets or mealworms in a plastic bag in the freezer until they are dead but not frozen, fifteen minutes or so. Take them out and rinse them again. You don't really have to clean mealworms, though if you want, you can chop off their heads. Crickets' heads and hind legs must be removed.

It's even easier to enjoy a meal of mealworms au naturel. Just gather up as many mealworms as you can sanely eat. Open mouth. Insert live mealworms. Chew. Swallow. This should be performed only on insects that you keep yourself. Don't snag just any passing cockroaches, ants, or termites in an urban area unless you have developed a natural immunity to pesticides. Don't eat mealworms that you've just purchased from the pet store, as they may have been eating newspapers (or other unsavory substances). Always remember to wash your mealworm before eating it. How to make insect flour
Spread your cleaned insects out on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Oven-dry insects at 200F for approximately 1 to 3 hours. They should be fairly brittle and crush easily. Grind them in a blender or coffee grinder till they are about the consistency of wheat germ. Use in practically any recipe! Mealworm flour tastes and smells like dried bacon. Try sprinkling it on salads; add it to soups; toss it into your favorite bread recipe.

Chocolate-Covered Crickets
Take 25 adult crickets and several squares of semisweet chocolate. Rinse crickets, pat dry, and freeze for half an hour or until dead. Remove the legs and, if desired, the heads of the crickets. Bake the bodies at 250 degrees until crunchy. Heat the squares of semi-sweet chocolate in a double boiler until melted. Dip the dry roasted crickets in the melted chocolate one by one and set out to dry on a piece of wax paper. Enjoy!

Ant Brood Tacos
Fry 1/2 pound of ant larvae or pupae in 2 tablespoons peanut oil or butter. Add one chopped onion, three serrano chilies and a chopped tomato. Season with salt. Add ground pepper, cumin, and oregano, to taste. Serve in tacos garnished with cilantro. (Recipe from Julieta Ramos-Elorduy's fine book Creepy Crawly Cuisine.)

Aletheia Price is a California resident and lifelong homeschooler whose interests include entomophagy, web design and nonfiction writing.

Photos available in Man Eating Bugs by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio ($19.95. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 1998)