Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for July 14, 2012

Dill’s nailed it.

I wonder if bugs count in the “picky eaters” rating.(Assuming they are not krinkle cut).

Yet people don’t have an issue with lobster.

With lobster and crab, you don’t eat the shell (the crunchy exoskeleton) and there aren’t any wings.

Bug parts in food seem to be mostly legs and wings. Except for the candy bar maggots.

Let’s not disparage raisins! —Just look carefully before you eat them. BTW, my (Italian) grandmother used to say that everyone eats a bushel of dirt before they die; maybe the bugs were mixed into it….

Wasn’t it L:eno who said his dad said they were so poor they ate dirt and liked it?

Went to Mexico once and bought a piece of candy. Broke it in half to share with a friend and found a fly’s wing. Was scared to know here the rest of him went

This coffee tastes like mud!Well, it was just ground this morning.

If the raisins move…don’t eat them.

Found a grasshopper in a can of green beans, only after my son had bitten it in half…he got a addition to his pound of bugs that day…

1. Found a beautifully preserved, fat little roach in the bottom of my individual-serving Wheaties box one day. That was over sixty years ago, so they may have gotten the, um, bugs worked out by now.2. My boyfriend gave me a gift of canned baby bees. Ate some – they tasted kind of weird. I later married him anyway.

I would…have to read…this…right…before…lunc-[ Hurling ]

I was in a shop in Albuquerque and they were selling lollipops with scopions and tarantulas in them. Probably as a gag. (Made me gag. XP)

Thanks, I was just eating my Raisin Bran when I read this.

Dill – and things with mushrooms!

I have a sister who was DEAD SURE that there was a fly in her cream of mushroom soup back when she was about 6 years old. Maybe she was on to something.

I’d imagine that it’s pretty common to have some bug parts in your food. I prepared some lettuce from my garden, and to get all of the bugs off I had to soak it, pour off the bugs that floated to the top, soak it, pour off the bugs… I then watched each leaf by hand, but I have little doubt that I missed a few and wounded up eating them. I don’t use pesticides, so I’m sure that I had far more bugs than one would find on most mass-produced produce, but you can bet that few industrial growers would have put forth the effort that I did to get rid of whatever bugs may have found their way into the food. Then, of course, I’m sure that insects are attacted to each step of the food processing and transportation system, so they’ll inevitably find their way in at some point in the process. Add to that, I’ve heard that over a lifetime we all swallow a lot of spiders while we sleep – they find their way in, but not out. Given all of this, it seems like a pound of bugs over a lifetime would be a low estimate.

When I was about 7 years old or so my great grandmother came to stay with us. She was in her eighties at the time and her eyesight was poor. My mom, sister, great-gram and I were eating lunch in the backyard and for dessert grammy brought out her famous buttermilk cake. I was thrilled when my mom allowed me to have a SECOND piece! When I was fininshed, I noticed my mom and sister had not eaten theirs. Later I asked her why they had not eaten theirs and she told me the cake was filled with meal worms!!! Some how I managed to keep the cake down.

I doubt it’s just a pound, the common red food coloring made up of crushed bugs (It’s called cochineal.) there’s the usual bug parts that make it into food or ride along with produce. And that’s not even accounting for people who eat bugs like tequilla worms, honey pot ants, roasted crickets, etc.

I’m pretty sure I downed a gnat that flew into my mouth this morning as I was mowing the lawn.

Our biology teacher gives extra credit to those kids brave enough to down a few bugs. I guess if you’re hungry or desperate enough….

Or maybe in your sleep.

Pan roasted locusts and/or grasshoppers, ants fried in butter with optional chocolate coating, roasted grubs…..Some good eating there.

I’ve seen many people eat uncooked insects, but I’m little to squemish for that.