Oddly, I can see Dan inspecting lunch bags as they enter the office.

Bicycles covered in sugar and fat. Mmmm...

I'll stick with the cows and pigs, thanks. But if ECB ever does eat bugs, I want a photo of it.

I eat shrimp and lobster. I should be eating bugs, too. Prepared correctly I think I could do it.

It'd be neat if The Stranger sponsored a big insect feed where several Seattle celeb chefs prepared a big spread of bug food. For charity!

I tried to make this very argument to some environmentally inclined friends a couple years ago, and no one was buying.

Pass me the crickets. Seriously, what is a lobster but an enormous bug?

Yeah, shrimp and lobsters pretty much are bugs. If I ate animals I could see giving 'em a try.

I guess it's a bad sign if part of the reason I don't like shrimp and lobster is that they're like giant bugs...?

they create far more edible protein per pound of feed as cattle.

What creates even more edible protein per pound of feed: feed! You don't need to be eating dead creatures for protein. It's almost impossible to be protein deficient in this country, even if you're vegan.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n211/ai_17010257

i'd rather be a vegetarian than eat bug guts.

but i eat oysters, so i'm a fucking hypocrite.

I ate chocolate-covered ants once. They were good...I guess.

mankind has a psychological need for some sort of meat, dating back to the cro magnum big swinging dick days where I either you were big strong healthy aggressive meat eater...or a half starved little pussy subsisting on shoots and roots........lobster are the roaches of the sea, cockroaches are nasty and I'm spider phobic , but I have eaten locusts raw, fried, and preserved in honey. they come around Florida in a big swarm every few years....black ants are nutrious but hard to catch and meager...fire ants are crunchy have a weird chemical aftertaste and will get you mildly high

Actually, the every-year-or-so emergence of 17-year-cicada broods east of us do seriously trigger discussions of recipes on how to cook cicadas... in the mainstream press even. That would have been too gross for mainstream even a decade ago.

Bugs are OK once you get used to them. I admit I'd have trouble really getting used to them. Prepared as food I'd be OK (and have eaten them); what I can't do (yet) is just dig out the big white whitchetty grubs and munching them down fresh and alive and squirming.

I visited Thailand a couple of years ago. At many of the outdoor markets could be found wicker baskets full of fist-sized beetles (that is to say, ROACHES, ack). Plenty of meat on them though, I'm sure.

Industrial chicken = 4 lbs of meat from 8 lbs of feed. Seems like a much better compromise.

On the flip side I'd love to see what Carmelita does with this as a theme menu . . .

Now is the time to turn to philosopher Vincent Vega: "But bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good."

Shrimp and lobster are pretty much bugs. Some bugs, like witchety grubs, are yummy roasted over a slow fire. Others ... not.

Earthworms and many bugs need to be fed a cleansing diet before you eat them, but if you're ever lost in the wilderness, bugs and mashed up cooked roots will keep you alive.

Come on, veganism is the real bicycle here. And as a vegan who's eaten grubs in the past, I can tell you that vegan food is much more pleasant.

Also, most of you are already eating bugs without realizing it. The natural food colors carmine and cochineal are made from beetles, and the "confectioner's glaze" usually found in sprinkles is too.

Can you milk grasshoppers?

Down here in Mexico they have spicy fried (I guess) crickets, they call them chapulines. They aren´t gross, though they´re definitely an acquired taste I imagine. There´s actually a kind of blankness to the taste that the spicyness is wrapped around, if you will, that is the least appealing thing, it feels like you are eating those diet chips that make you shit your pants. The consistency is almost exactly that of filo dough, with tiny flecks of trail mix mixed in. They´re more snack food, though, I don´t think anyone has ever served them as an entree.

Come to think of it, actually, they might be small grasshoppers. Not sure.

@20 - yes. I used to have a kitten that loved to eat grasshoppers. Almost as yummy as locusts.

I'm a vegetarian and would abstain from purposefully eating bugs unless lost in the wilderness, in which case I'd rather eat bugs than a rabbit or something. But man, I sure do love watching Bear Grylls eat bugs on Man vs. Wild. It's one of my favorite parts of each episode: watch Bear eat something gross! That's a live snake, in his mouth! The one where he ate a grub and said it was the consitency of "warm cream cheese with bits of gristle" still makes me want to vomit, but in a good way.

I would love to learn how to cook and eat bugs. Seriously if I ever saw them on a menu I'd try them. I was talking to the bf about taking some trips specifically to learn how other cultures prepare insect dishes. I could set up a food cart on campus and sell spicy cricket burritos. Funny thing is I'm not even joking.

Most red lipstick is made from carmine, another word for crushed up red bugs.

Seriously.

Check out at the Pacific Science Center.

I don't think that's true anymore. Most carminic acid is synthetic now (as are most pigments), though cochineal (the insect) is making a comeback.

Plastics don't count.

You are the stupidest person on the face of the earth, Will. Who said anything about plastics?

It is probably not at all coincidental that Toscaninni's ice cream has recently gone spectacularly out of business.