Stuff You Should Know - How Entomophagy Works

Episode Date: October 7, 2008

Entomophagy -- the practice of eating insects -- is common outside of Europe and North America. Despite cultural taboos, you've probably eaten insects without knowing it. Check out our HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about entomophagy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot who would claim he did it all for this CIA. I'm Lauren Brad Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Guess who's with me? Michael Douglas. No, Brian. Even better than Michael Douglas. Less intense, a little more laid back. How you doing, Chuck?

I'm doing well. We're a pair of writers here at HowStuffWorks.com. We got some stuff to share with you. Have you heard of Entomophage? I have. And try every part of the world except Europe, Canada, and the United States, basically. That's so weird to me that we see things so differently. I wouldn't need a bug. I wouldn't. I've actually considered it. I've read your article and I was thinking, this would be an awesome, cool dinner party to have. Yeah.

Like have some normal food, but also have like fried crickets, something like that. And the more I thought about it more, I was like, there's no way I'm ever going to do this. Yeah, you know, I almost ordered some for the article just because I could, basically. And I didn't. Oh, that's a hell of a story, Chuck. Great one. So let's get into this, shall we? Let's talk about this. You said Europe, America, and Canada, the only places. So in Mexico, I didn't notice anyone eating bugs in Mexico. It's big there. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sure. So I imagine that there's regional differences based on the, or is anyone importing bugs, I guess, or do people just generally eat locally? You eat locally. And it's one reason people eat bugs. And actually we should call them

insects, I guess, all over the world is because they're everywhere. They're cheap. They're nutritious. And they prepare them to where, you know, they enjoy the taste. Well, I know, yeah, bugs are, I'm sorry, insects are definitely plentiful. But I would imagine it would take a lot to fill up. Like I can eat like a side of beef in the sitting. How many, how many like, you know, caterpillars would it take to fill a man like me up? I've been described as beefy, by the way, for factor fiction listeners. Right. I don't know how many caterpillars would take to fill you, Josh. I imagine it's more than 10. I would imagine that would be my guess. But as you said, they are plentiful. So they are. Well, before we get into the whole modern

entomophagy, is that how you pronounced it? We should talk a little bit about the history, because they did this all throughout the Bible. The Greeks and Romans ate beetle larvae and locusts, and even Aristotle ate cicadas. So what I noticed that I found strange was that in the Bible, there's some food that's off limits. Plenty of bugs are perfectly fine to eat locusts, especially I saw recurring over and over again when I read the Bible last night. And there were some that was off limits like rabbit. Rabbit pelicans, interestingly. I think yeah. Okay. Rabbits, you said pigs, mice, weasels and turtles. Yeah, I probably wouldn't eat a weasel. I'd eat a turtle. Turtle soup's not bad. This is all, I mean, we should say this is all Old

Testament stuff, which I know people that subscribe to the Bible and its teachings would tell you that the Old Testament isn't really where it's at. It depends if you're of the Judaic persuasion. I imagine that you put a lot of stock in the Old Testament. That's a good point. You know, also called the Torah. Right. Sure. But you can't eat those things according to the Old Testament and Leviticus, but you can eat locusts and grasshoppers and beetles. It's recommended. And I know John the Baptist famously lived for months on locusts and honeycomb. Famously, sure. Yeah. So people have been doing this a long, long time. Aborigines in Australia have been doing it for a long time and continue to eat grubs. And apparently grubs

taste like roasted almonds. You know, I used to build ponds many lifetimes ago, and there was this kind of ongoing challenge. Yes. Yes. There's this ongoing challenge anyway who ate a grub while we were digging, you know, became like the onsite, you know, tough guy. Right. Never saw anybody actually eat it. Oh, no, never. Never. I saw one guy pretend to you, but that was it. So yeah, these days, people eat bugs, like I said, they're plentiful, and by plentiful, I mean more than 1,400 edible species of insects. There is no need for the outside world because we are removed from it and apart from it and in our own universe. On the new podcast, The Turning, Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate

veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine. There are not very many of us that actually grew up with Balanchine. It was like I grew up with Mozart. He could do no wrong. Like he was a god. But what was the cost for the dancers who brought these ballets to life? Were the lines between the professional and the personal were hazy and often crossed? He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you, only I can see you. Most people in the ballet world are more interested in their experience of watching it than in a dancer's experience of executing it. Listen to The Turning, Room of Mirrors on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for

what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's just the edible kind. And that's just species. It's not like there's 1,400 insects walking around we can eat. I mean, how many millions or billions or trillions of insects are there right now on planet Earth that we could just pick up and eat? A lot. Beetles, for instance, there's close to 350 kinds of beetle alone that you can eat. And ants, bees, wasps, butterflies, moss. Wait, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Chuck,

you said wasps? Yeah, people eat wasps. Dead, I imagine. Yeah, they generally with most of the winged creatures will take off the wings and the legs and prepare them like either on a skewer, like a roasted wasp, or sometimes they're boiled and put in soup, that kind of thing. So, but the venom doesn't affect you once it's dead or does it add spice or what's the deal? You know, that's a good question. I didn't get to that. If you're just asking for my opinion, I would say maybe if you eat it, it's not bad for you, but if it's injected in your bloodstream to a stinger, it's probably a different kind of thing. There's plenty of people out there for

us to ask. I noticed also that there's about 3,000 ethnic groups around the planet that consume bugs. They do. And I think it's telling and interesting that you kind of delineated it like that. These are ethnic groups that eat this. It's a cultural thing. We could eat anything at any given point in time, unless we consider it disgusting. Which we do. To an extent, right? Because, as you said, crustaceans like, or not crustaceans, but I'm sorry, lobster, crabs, arthropods. Yes. Well, lobsters and crabs are just a cousin of the spider basically, and that's, you know, you pay a lot of money for a lobster to a restaurant. Oh, yeah. And lobsters eat nasty stuff. They're kind of bottom dwellers, and they eat a lot worse things than

spiders do. Like license plates? Yeah. Well, Jaws did. I don't know if a lobster gave license plates. Oh, hey, I can tell you I've seen a couple of lobsters that could have eaten a license plate. So, yeah, it's all basically in the eye of the beholder. You know, it's a cultural taboo in Europe and Canada and the United States. Not so in the rest of the world. They eat, in South America, dude, they eat tarantulas and scorpions. And scorpions, I've heard of eating tarantulas. I had never heard of that before. I got the impression that it's prepared in such a way that the hair remains on the ingested part of the tarantula. It is. There's actually a good quote because I wasn't brave enough to find a tarantula or eat one because spiders hear the crud out of me.

But Peter Menzel, he's the author of a book called Man Eating Bugs, and he has a great description about eating a tarantula is, if day old chickens had no bones, hair instead of feathers and were the size of a newborn sparrow, they might taste like tarantulas. So he really kind of lost me at day old chicken. Day old chicken doesn't sound that bad. It was the hair part that got me. That's just disconcerting, I find. Yeah, I think Americans aren't used to eating anything that's hairy. No, no. I mean, have you ever eaten pigskin? I've eaten the pork rinds, is that count? Have you ever found like a hair, like an errant hair? No. That is, it's troubling. But you know what, Josh, it's funny you should mention errant hair because there's a little book that you may not

know about by the Food and Drug Administration. You know which one I'm talking about? I don't remember the title, but I know what you're talking about. The title really says it all. It's called The Food Defect Action Levels, Levels of Natural or Unavoidable Defects in Foods that Present No Health Hazards for Humans. It's quite a mouthful, as it were. Yeah, so basically what this is, it's a big handbook that the FDA puts out that lists an acceptable amount of things like errant hairs, maggots, larvae that are in things that you eat that are acceptable to sell in stores because it won't harm you. Acceptable by federal mandate, not necessarily acceptable on a personal level, I found. No, by the fact that it won't physically harm you. Right. So I've

got a few if you want to. I am all ears. If I gag, though, please forgive me. Frozen broccoli. There can be 60 or more aphids and or mites per 100 grams. See, frozen broccoli in and of itself is bad enough. You throw some aphids in there, it may actually make it okay. I love broccoli. Your ground cinnamon may have 400 or more insect fragments per 50 grams. Which fragments, that's anything. That's like the hot dog of spices, apparently. Your macaroni or noodle product can have an average of 225 insect fragments or more and 4.5 rodent hairs per 225 grams. And I know that's not an insect, but I just thought I'd throw that in there. Rodent hair is pretty bad. And actually, folks, you can thank Upton Sinclair for it being just

that small. I think had it not been for the jungle, we would be eating whole canned rodents in our canned tomatoes and things like that. There is no need for the outside world because we are removed from it and apart from it and in our own universe. On the new podcast, The Turning, Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine. There are not very many of us that actually grew up with Balanchine. It was like I grew up with Mozart. He could do no wrong. Like he was a god. But what was the cost for the dancers who brought these ballets to life? Were the lines between the professional and the personal were hazy and often

crossed? He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you, only I can see you. Most people in the ballet world are more interested in their experience of watching it than in the dancers' experience of executing it. Listen to The Turning, Room of Mirrors on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. With any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime

example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I've got two more. I know this is probably turning off some of our listeners, but these two, I think most of our listeners clicked on another podcast long ago. No, because

they want to hear these two. Trust me. You know the nice black and white whole peppercorn that you crunch onto your filet mignon? An average of one milligram or more of mammalian excretia for pounds. And by mammalian, you mean any mammal? Mammal poop. Does that include humans? We're mammals. I don't know about that. I mean, it's like Joe down at the packing plant, you know? Maybe. Causing a little surprise within FDA standards. At the pepper packing plant. Maybe so. And the final one, popcorn. You enjoy your movie theater. That popcorn by law can have one or more rodent excretia pellet per subsample. And they didn't say the size of the subsample. Wow. Well, thank you very much, Chuck. I appreciate you sharing that with us. I know

our listeners do as well. Sure thing. That was great. Do you have any more gross out stuff to add? Not gross out, but I think we should just finish up by talking a little bit about the benefits of eating insects. Yeah. Also, I think that's a great way to close out. I also want to point out that there is a huge, huge difference between eating rodent excretia and eating bugs as far as cultures around the world go. Right. We're not trying to equate the two. No, of course not. So go ahead, Chuck, because from what I understand, there really are some great health benefits to eating bugs. There are. They're really good for you. Yeah, go ahead. Well, 100 grams of crickets will give you only 121 calories. That's it. 49 of which come from fat.

And you'll get 13 grams of protein and 75 milligrams of iron and 5 grams of carbohydrates. Yeah. What's the one powerhouse insect? If you're really looking to lose some weight, but retain muscle mass, that kind of thing, what insect do you go for? One word. Caterpillar. Yeah. Yes. Caterpillar. You can get 28 grams of protein for 100 grams of caterpillar, as well as iron, vitamin B1 and B3. Yeah. And actually, I looked that up. I looked up salmon, and that's on par with salmon, actually. Right, which is great for your heart. Oh, it's great food. Yeah. It's one of the all-star. So if you can't afford salmon, go out into your backyard and find some caterpillars. But there are some precautions you

should take first if you're going to raise your own insects to eat or capture your own insects to eat, right? Yeah. I mean, if you live in the United States, you probably shouldn't go out to your backyard and get anything, because chances are they might have insecticide on them or something. But if you did want to collect some, you could capture them and feed them fresh grass for a few days, and it cleans out their system in no time. And if you're in a survival situation, obviously, you'd want to eat some insects. Eat whatever, yeah. Well, not whatever, buddy. Oh, okay. Well, here's where the warning comes from. In part, your wisdom. There's a rule of thumb that's really easy to remember. Red, orange, yellow, forget the fellow. Black, green, brown, wolf it down.

Black, green, brown. Yeah. Basically, anything is brightly colored or really pungent. You want to stay away from because that's kind of their warning signal to the world that I'm poisonous and I can hurt you. Right. So stick to worms. Earth tones. Grubs. Yeah, earth tones. Sure, okay. Cool. And we recommend, before you go eat, need bugs, read how Intimophage works on howstuffworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. The cartels, they just killed everybody that was home. Setting an aspiring private investigator on a collision course with corruption

and multiple murders. The detective agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot, would claim he did it all for this CIA. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1968, five black girls were picked up by police after running away from a reform school in Mount Megs, Alabama. I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate the abuse that thousands of black children suffered at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children and how those five girls changed everything. Listen to Unreformed on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.