Edible insects?

Question

OK, this might sound silly, but I have gone crazy with Yahoo!Answers, and I really want to know:

how much of the human diet is/was made up of insects around he world? Where do you find them and how do you prepare/eat them?

Answer 1

an ethnoanthropological (whew) look at Australia's Aborigines will help you out with this answer.  Depending on the region they were found in, indigenous diets of roots, berries and fruit were supplemented by meat, either fish, larger animals, and insects.  The bogong Moth and Witchety Grub are notable 'bushtucker' menu items and are still eaten today, both raw and roasted over the fire.  Another group good to look at are the San people of Southern Africa, a truly ancient group.  honey ants, termites, etc.

Asian countries prepare crickets, spiders, etc, you have probably seen these examples more commonly.  usually deep fried to a crisp.

Answer 2

If you can, try to see an old movie called, "Mondo Cane"...

It's all about eating strange foods from all around the world...mostly insects!

In one Central American country, they wrap up a scoop full of insects in a soft taco shell, and gobble them down as fast as they can, before they run away...

Answer 3

they're all good...

Answer 4

Shrimp are a form of sea insect. Similarly, although lobsters and crabs are called crustaceans, they belong to the arthropods, which is the same category the arachnids (spiders) belong to. Look at them: they have 8 legs.

Answer 5

I have eaten a number of insects during survival training and believe it or not they were not that bad. Here is a web site for you.

Answer 6

Fry or roast locusts and grasshoppers (as some of the early settlers did in the American West). In Australia we have a favourite of the aboriginal Australians: "honey ants", a species which has some of these insects hanging from the ceiling of their underground caverns, abdomens hugely distended with a sweet, clear, yellowish liquid, much like honey (ants and bees evolved from a common ancestor), which is gathered from the nectar of flowers by the workers, and stored in times of plenty, against the frequent, severe droughts, with subsequent scarcity of food and water that occur in this, the driest of all the inhabited continents (our country is mostly desert, and we have been in a long drought; water restrictions are beginning, and we are building desalination plants, to cope). You can buy cans of chocolate coated ants. Brings to mind Monty Python's "CRUNCHY FROG".