Within the 1973 kids's ebook "The best way to Eat Fried Worms," Billy, the younger protagonist, downs 15 worms in 15 days for 50 bucks. On the American sport show "Fear Factor," contestants wolfed down larvae, cockroaches and different insects by the handful for a shot at $50,000. Plainly in Western tradition, the only time anybody eats an insect is on a wager or a dare. This is not true in a lot of the remainder of the world. Aside from within the United States, Canada and Europe, most cultures eat insects for their taste, nutritional worth and availability. The follow known as entomophagy. Chimpanzees, aardvarks, bears, moles, shrews and bats are just some mammals apart from people that eat insects. Many insects eat other insects -- they're referred to as assassin or ambush bugs. Some even go Hannibal Lecter on their very own sort. Insects are excessive in nutritional value, low in fats and cheap.

So why do Americans and Europeans go out of their technique to avoid consuming them -- even going as far as to spray their fruits and vegetables with dangerous pesticides? It's called a cultural taboo. The Food and Drug Administration has a list of the quantity of insects they allow in packaged meals in a report referred to as "The Food Defect Action Levels: Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans." If you're brave, you possibly can look this list over to search out that 5 fly eggs or one maggot is allowed in a can of fruit juice. How does 800 insect fragments in your floor cinnamon sound? Do 30 fly eggs or two maggots in your spaghetti sauce make your mouth water? Give this some thought subsequent time you shop on your prepackaged food. In this text, we'll see what the hullabaloo is over entomophagy. We'll look on the history of the observe, what cultures are doing it and the way the bugs are sometimes prepared.

We'll additionally offer you an idea of what some of these crawly critters taste like and supply some tasty recipes if you are thinking about giving entomophagy a shot. As man evolved from ape, the hunters and gatherers collected greater than edible plants. They set their sights on insects. They were everywhere, and insect zapper other animals ate them, so why not? In fact, these early people most likely took their cues on which ones have been tasty by observing the animals in the world. Years later, the Romans and Greeks would dine on beetle larvae and locusts. Greek scientist and philosopher Aristotle even wrote about harvesting tasty cicadas. If that is not enough, we'll get Biblical on you. In the Old Testament e book of Leviticus, the writers did a nice job of outlining the foods that are forbidden and permissible to devour. Off-limits were rabbits, pigs, pelicans, mice, turtles and weasels. Apparently our Biblical ancestors had been a bit much less choosy than we are right this moment.

Then in Leviticus 11:22, it says "Even these of them ye might eat