I like bugs but I don’t like them crawling on me. In fact, when I find an insect on any part of my body, I shiver to the core of my soul. Many cultures throughout the world use insects for food. When animals eat insects they are called insectivores. When humans eat them it is known as Entomophagy.
Today, insects are eaten in virtually every continent. Entomophagy, though still practiced, was very popular in the distant past. In fact, insects may have played an important role in the diet of early humans. To get a better understanding of this line of research, one must take a closer look at poop. Archaeologists have a nicer term; we refer to fossilized poop as coprolites.
Coprolites are often found in caves and a quick look under the microscope reveals all kinds of little guys, like ants, beetle larvae, mites, ticks and lice. In northern Spain cave paintings dating between 30,000 and 9,000 BC depict the collection of bee nests. Evidence from China also suggests that the pupae of the silkworm were eaten.
Closer to home we find both ethnographic and archaeological evidence that Native peoples also consumed insects. Indiginous populations in California ate grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, Pandora moths, bee larvae and pupae, June beetles, shore flies and White-lined sphinx moths. Grasshoppers were easily harvested and provided a relatively high nutritional content.
I bet you were wondering what 6 grams of insects per day would provide in terms of protein and fat. Bee larvae and pupae contain about 17% of your daily protein requirements, whereas, grasshoppers and crickets weigh in at a whopping 65%. We all know that protein is comprised of amino acids and in grasshoppers and crickets we find measurable amounts of Arginine, glycine-serine, leucine and tryptophan.
I know I am always looking to increase my vitamin intake and once again grasshoppers, bee larvae and pupae and ants can provide us with that extra little something. Grasshoppers, for instance, will enrich our bodies with niacin. Just so you know, severe deficiencies of niacin can cause diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia, inflammation of the mouth and tongue and a variety digestive disturbances. Other common symptoms include irritability, anxiety, fatigue, restlessness and depression.
In terms of vitamins D and B-6, bee larvae and pupae are the way to go. In prehistoric California, the collection of bee and yellow-jacket larvae as food was quite widespread. Both honey and larva from bee’s nests were obtained. The honey was generally eaten immediately while the larvae were cooked and eaten. Some groups smoked adult wasps out from their nests then cooked the entire nests for later consumption.
Even the dreaded scorpion was eaten by some. Early California mountain man, Jedediah Smith, recounted a story about a woman and her two children on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, collecting scorpions for consumption. The Northern Piute, however, never ate scorpions declaring that their consumption would make one sick.
Anthropologists now conclude that insects probably played a much larger role in the subsistence practices of Native peoples than once thought. Most of the evidence for such practices comes from ethnographic accounts. The Spanish/Mexican missionaries noted such practices as did American colonizers as they moved west to the golden hills of California.
As I always tell my kids before driving them to school each morning, Entomophagy is not a state for mind, but a frame of mind. Some of the best markets over in the Agua Calientes and Boyes area sell salted grasshoppers. They are highly nutritious, very tasty and go great with ice cold beer!
