Start Phasing Insects Into Your Diet

I took to the internet in an attempt to find something to write about. My search led me a June 2011 article about an ice cream store in Columbia, Missouri that sold out of Cicada ice cream. If you were in the Midwest earlier this summer then you know that we were under attack by these 2-inch long noisemakers.  While not particularly harmful to humans, they can be pretty darn annoying, especially when its time for them to emerge in great numbers like they did this year. We humans are pretty resilient though, we won't let a swarm of three-eyed alien-looking bugs stop us from mowing our lawns or going out for coffee. We mow the lawn with a tennis racket and duck, dodge and roll to the coffeehouse while these pesky skin-shedders mistake our arms for tree branches.

Boiled Cicada ice cream anyone? Apparently so. Seems the employees of the ice cream store captured these tasty treats right in their own backyards, removed most of the critter's wings and the boiled the poor things. My question is just how old is the legal working age in Columbia, Missouri because finding playing with bugs fun was over for me at about age 5 or 6.

At least the bugs were boiled before they basted the pests in brown sugar and chocolate and mixed with brown sugar and butter flavored ice cream. This apparently wasn't a plus, however for the public health officials in Central Missouri who kindly asked the store to stop selling the treat.

Did the health official not know that in China, Malaysia, Latin America, and Burma among other places these giant bugs are skewered, deep-fried and served as a delicacy? It turns out that the public health agencies code book doesn't specifically address Cicada's as food so it was more of a nudge to get them to stop rather than an order.

Would you or did you eat any Cicada ice cream during the invasion this year? Here is an interesting idea: we Americans should start phasing insects into our diets. Every seven or thirteen years when the Cicada's emerge in great numbers we would would rely much less on other countries for our food. Think about it!