Why shouldn't we eat bugs?

What would you do if you found a fly in your soup?  Call for the waiter to bring you a fresh new bowl, or slurp it up?

Chances are, you’d try and remove the fly as soon as possible because you wouldn’t want to ingest any kind of bug ever.

I’ve got some bad news for you, folks.

We likely eat about two pounds of bugs each year without knowing it. I realize this topic has been around for a while now, but I started to think about it when Abbott Laboratories set out a recall on certain Similac powder formulas, after discovering beetles in one of their plants.

The spokesperson said 99.8 percent of the formulas produced from that specific plant still were not contaminated. Furthermore, pediatricians claim that if infants have had contaminated formula, they would only have mild abdominal troubles.

All in all, it doesn’t seem all that bad to me.

Still parents have been flipping out that their children are eating bugs. Possibly.
And then there are all the bugs that fall into our peanut butters, fruit jams, or any food in a processing plant.

As much as we strive for perfection there is no way to ensure that every product will be bug-free. Furthermore, I don’t think that’s such a bad idea.

Some people have suggested that the way to solve world hunger and famine is by eating bugs. They’re plentiful and full of the same nutrients as other foods we eat on a regular basis.

Once you get past the visual of biting into a bug, it really can’t be all that bad.
Besides eating bugs in peanut butter or other such foods, we’ve been eating them elsewhere for quite some time.

Other bugs are crushed up and used for red food coloring for quite a few products.
Sure, you’re not technically being vegetarian when you ingest the coloring, but it seems better than ingesting red #40, knowing full well it comes from coal.

In many other countries, certain grubs and beetles are viewed as desired foods. Almost every other country in the world makes a point of eating bugs on purpose, whether preparation is minimal or extravagant.

So why shouldn’t we eat bugs?

Obviously we eat them without knowing it. And enough people seem to like covering some bugs in chocolate for fancy events here, anyway.

So for all those out there worried about little babies eating bugs, relax. They’ll probably be eating worms in the backyard once their teeth grow in, anyway. 

Alright, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But I think that we shouldn’t be freaking out so much about a few bugs in a plant when they’ve not been proven to be particularly dangerous or harmful when digested. And when we eat so many bugs annually, I really don’t see the need for tons of concern.

I might not be biting into a deep fried cockroach anytime soon, but it’d be nice to see our society be more open-minded to a six-legged cuisine.