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How Entomophagy Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Guess who's with me? Michael Douglas.
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  Speaker 1: No Bryant even better than Michael Douglas, Less intense, a
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  Speaker 1: little more laid back. Are you doing, Chuck, Well, we're
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  Speaker 1: a pair of writers here at how stuff works dot Com.
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  Speaker 1: We got some stuff to share with you. Have you
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  Speaker 1: heard him into fag? I have and try every part
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  Speaker 1: of the world except Europe, Canada and the United States.
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  Speaker 1: That's so weird to me that that we we see
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  Speaker 1: things so differently, right, I wouldn't need a bug. I wouldn't.
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  Speaker 1: I've actually considered it. I've read your article and I
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  Speaker 1: was thinking this would be an awesome, cool dinner party
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  Speaker 1: to have, yeah, like have some normal food but also
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  Speaker 1: have like fried cricket something like that. And the more
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  Speaker 1: I thought about more, I was like, there's no way
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  Speaker 1: I'm ever going to do this. Yeah, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: almost ordered some uh for the article just too because
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  Speaker 1: I could basically and I didn't. The story great one. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so let's get into this, shall we. Let's let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about this. You said Europe, America and Canada the only places.
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  Speaker 1: So in Mexico, I didn't notice anyone eating bugs in Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: It's big there, Okay, So I imagine that, Uh the
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  Speaker 1: the there's regional differences based on the or is anyone
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  Speaker 1: importing bugs, I guess? Or do people just generally eat locally?
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  Speaker 1: You eat locally? And uh it's one reason people eat
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  Speaker 1: bugs and actually we should call them insects, I guess
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  Speaker 1: all over the world is because they're everywhere. They're cheap,
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  Speaker 1: they're nutritious, and they prepare them to where you know,
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  Speaker 1: they enjoy the taste. Well, I know, yeah, bugs are
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Insects are definitely plentiful. But I would imagine
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  Speaker 1: it would take a lot to to fill up like
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  Speaker 1: I can eat like a side of eefan is sitting.
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  Speaker 1: How many how many, like you know, caterpillars would it
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  Speaker 1: take to phil a man like me. I've been described
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  Speaker 1: as beefy by the way, for factor fiction listeners. All right,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how many caterpillars would take the filling
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  Speaker 1: in Josh, imagine it's more than uh ten. I would imagine.
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  Speaker 1: But as you said, they are plentiful, so they are
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  Speaker 1: well before we get into the whole modern uh into mafaji.
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  Speaker 1: Is that how you pronounced it. Um, we should talk
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about the history, because they did this
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  Speaker 1: all throughout the Bible. The Greeks and Romans ate beatle
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  Speaker 1: larva and locusts, and even Aristotle ate cicadas. So what
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  Speaker 1: I noticed that I found strange was that in the
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  Speaker 1: Bible there's some food that's off limits. Plenty of bugs
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  Speaker 1: are are perfectly fine to eat, locus especially. I saw
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  Speaker 1: recurring over and over again when I read the Bible
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  Speaker 1: last night, and um, there was some that was off limits,
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  Speaker 1: like rabbit, rabbit, uh, pelicans. Interestingly, I think, yeah, rabbits.
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  Speaker 1: Um you said pigs, mice, weasels, And yeah, I probably
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't eat a weasel. I neat a turtle. Turtle soup
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  Speaker 1: is not bad. Um, This is all I mean. We
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  Speaker 1: should say this is all Old Testament stuff, which I
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  Speaker 1: know people that that subscribe to the Bible and its
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  Speaker 1: teachings would tell you that the Old Testament isn't really
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  Speaker 1: where it's at. It depends if you're of the judaic persuasion.
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  Speaker 1: I imagine that you put a lot of stock in
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament. That's a good point, you know, also
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  Speaker 1: called the Torah, right, But you can't eat those things
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  Speaker 1: according to the Old Testament in Leviticus. But you can't
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  Speaker 1: eat locusts and uh, grasshoppers and beetles. It's recommended. And
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  Speaker 1: I know John the Baptist famously lived for months on
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  Speaker 1: locust and honeycomb famously. Sure, so people have been doing
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  Speaker 1: this a long long time, Aborigine Aborigines in Australia have
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  Speaker 1: been doing it for a long time and continue to
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  Speaker 1: eat grubs and apparently grubs taste like roasted almonds. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I used to build ponds many life times ago, and
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  Speaker 1: there was this kind of ongoing challenge. Yes, yes, um,
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  Speaker 1: there's this ongoing challenge. Anybody who ate a grub, well
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  Speaker 1: while we were digging, you know, became like the on
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  Speaker 1: site you know, tough guy. Never saw anybody actually eat
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  Speaker 1: Oh no never, never I saw one guy pretends to you,
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  Speaker 1: but that was it. So yeah, these days, um, people
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  Speaker 1: eat bugs. Like I said, they're plentiful, and by plentiful,
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  Speaker 1: I mean for more than fourteen hundred edible species of insect.
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  Speaker 1: That's just the edible kind. That's and that's just species.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like there's fourteen hundred insects walking around we
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  Speaker 1: can eat. I mean, how many millions or billions or
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  Speaker 1: trillions of insects are there right now on planet Earth
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  Speaker 1: that we could just pick up an eat a lot? Beatles?
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  Speaker 1: For instance, there's close to three d and fifty kinds
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  Speaker 1: of beetle alone that you can eat. And uh, ants, bees, wasps, butterflies, moss.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt you, Chuck. You said wasps, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: people eat wasps diad I imagine, uh yeah, they generally
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  Speaker 1: with they will with most of the winged creatures will
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  Speaker 1: take off the wings and the legs and prepare them
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  Speaker 1: like either on a secure like a roasted wasp, or
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  Speaker 1: sometimes they're boiled and putting soup that kind of thing. So,
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  Speaker 1: but the venom doesn't affect you once it's dead, or
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  Speaker 1: does it add spice or what? What? What's the deal?
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  Speaker 1: You know, that's a good question. I didn't get get
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  Speaker 1: to that my If you're just asking for my opinion,
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  Speaker 1: I would say maybe if you eat it, it's not
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  Speaker 1: bad for you. But if it's injected in your blood
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  Speaker 1: streams or a stinger. It's probably a different kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: There's plenty of people out there for us to ask.
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  Speaker 1: I noticed also that there's about three thousand ethnic groups
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  Speaker 1: around the planet that consume bugs. They do, and I
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  Speaker 1: think it's a it's telling and interesting that you you
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  Speaker 1: kind of delineated it like that these are ethnic groups
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  Speaker 1: that eat this. It's it's not it's it's a cultural thing.
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  Speaker 1: We could eat anything at any given point in time
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  Speaker 1: unless we consider it disgusting, which we do even to
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  Speaker 1: an extent, right because, as you said, crustaceans like or
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  Speaker 1: not crustaceans. But I'm sorry, um lobster Arthur pods. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: lobsters and crabs are just a cousin of the spider basically,
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  Speaker 1: and that's you know, you pay a lot of money
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  Speaker 1: for a lobster to restaurant, and lobsters eat nasty stuff.
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  Speaker 1: They're kind of bottom dwellers and they eat a lot
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  Speaker 1: worse things than spiders do, like license plates. Yeah, well
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  Speaker 1: the jaws did, I don't know, philostraphy linespit. Oh hey,
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  Speaker 1: I can tell you. I've seen a couple of lobsters
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  Speaker 1: that could have eaten the licensed plate. So yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: all basically in the eyes of the beholder. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it's a cultural taboo. And in European, Canada, the United States, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: not so in the rest of the world they eat
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  Speaker 1: In South America, did they eat tarantulas and scorpions. Scorpions,
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  Speaker 1: I've heard of eating tarantulas. I had never heard of
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  Speaker 1: that before. It's I got the impression that it's prepared
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  Speaker 1: in such a way that the hair remains on the
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  Speaker 1: the ingested part of the tarantula. It is. There's actually
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  Speaker 1: a good quote, because I wasn't brave enough to to
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  Speaker 1: find a tarantula or eat one, because spiders get the
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  Speaker 1: corona out of me. But Peter Menzel, he's the author
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  Speaker 1: of a book called Man Eating Bugs, and he has
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  Speaker 1: a great description about eating a tarantula. Is, uh, if
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  Speaker 1: day old chickens had no bones, hair instead of feathers,
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  Speaker 1: and with the size of a newborn sparrow, they might
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  Speaker 1: taste like tarantulas. So he really kind of lost me
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  Speaker 1: at day old chicken. The old chicken doesn't sound that bad.
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  Speaker 1: It was the hair part that got me. That's just disconcerting,
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  Speaker 1: I find. Yeah, I think the Americans aren't used to
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  Speaker 1: eating anything that's Harry no I mean, have you ever
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  Speaker 1: eaten pigskin? I've eaten the pork rins? Is that counting?
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  Speaker 1: Have you ever found like a hair like an Aaron hair? No?
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  Speaker 1: That is it's troubling. But you know what, Josh, is
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  Speaker 1: funny you should mention arrant hair because there's a little
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  Speaker 1: book that you may not know about by the Food
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  Speaker 1: and Drug Administration. You know which one I'm talking about.
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  Speaker 1: I don't remember the title, but I know what you're
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  Speaker 1: talking The title really says it all. It's it's called
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  Speaker 1: the Food Defect Action Levels, Levels of natural or unavoidable
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  Speaker 1: defects and foods that present no health hazards for humans.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's quite a mouthful, as it were. So basically
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  Speaker 1: what this is, it's a big handbook that the FDA
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  Speaker 1: puts out that that lists an acceptable amount of things
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  Speaker 1: like arrant hairs, maggots, larvae that are in things that
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  Speaker 1: you eat, that are acceptable to sell in stores because
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  Speaker 1: it won't harm you. Acceptable by federal mandate, not necessarily
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  Speaker 1: acceptable in a personal level. I found by by the
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  Speaker 1: fact that it won't physically harm you. So I've got
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  Speaker 1: a few. If you want to, I am all here,
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  Speaker 1: and if I gag they'll please forgive me. Frozen broccoli,
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  Speaker 1: there can be sixty or more aphids and or mites
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  Speaker 1: per one grams. Broccoli in and of itself is bad enough.
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  Speaker 1: You throw some aphids in there, it may actually make
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  Speaker 1: it okay. I love broccoli. Your ground cinnamon may have
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  Speaker 1: four hundred or more insect fragments per fifty grams. Which
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  Speaker 1: fragments that's anything that's like that's like the hot dog
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  Speaker 1: of spices apparently right. Uh. Your macaroni or noodle product
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  Speaker 1: can have an average of two hundred twenty five insect
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  Speaker 1: fragments or more and uh four point five rodent hairs
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  Speaker 1: uh per two grams. And I know that's on insect,
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  Speaker 1: but I just like to throw that in there. Roden
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  Speaker 1: hair is pretty bad and actually, folks, um, you can
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  Speaker 1: thank Upton Sinclair for it being just that small. I
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  Speaker 1: think if had it not been for his the Jungle, right,
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  Speaker 1: we would be eating you know, whole canned rodents in
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  Speaker 1: our you know can tomatoes and things like that. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I've got two more. I know this is uh probably
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  Speaker 1: turning off some of our listeners, but these two are
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  Speaker 1: I just can't. I think most of our listeners like
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  Speaker 1: clicked on another podcast long ago, because they want to
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  Speaker 1: hear these two. Trust me, you know, the nice black
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  Speaker 1: and white whole peppercorn that you that you crunch onto
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  Speaker 1: yourn an average of one milligram or more of mammalion
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  Speaker 1: excretia for pounds. And by mammalion you you mean any
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  Speaker 1: mammal mammal poop? Does that include humans? Animals? About that?
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's like Joe down at the packing plant,
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  Speaker 1: you know, maybe causing a little surprise with an FDA
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  Speaker 1: standard the pepper packing plant. Maybe so. And the final
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  Speaker 1: one popcorn you enjoy your movie theater, that popcorn, by
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  Speaker 1: law can have one or more rodent excrecia pellet uh
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  Speaker 1: per subsample. And they didn't say the size of the substances. Yeah. Wow, Well,
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much, Chuck. I appreciate you sharing that
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  Speaker 1: with us. I know our listeners do as well. Sure thing,
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  Speaker 1: that was great. Do you have any more gross out
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  Speaker 1: stuff that not gross out? But I think we should
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  Speaker 1: just finish up by by talking a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: the benefits of eating insects. Yeah. Also, I think that's
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  Speaker 1: a great That's a great way to close out. I
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  Speaker 1: also want to point out that there's a huge, huge,
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  Speaker 1: difference between eating rodent excrecia and eating bugs as far
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  Speaker 1: as cultures around the world, go right, we're not trying
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  Speaker 1: to equate the two. No, of course not so so
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  Speaker 1: go ahead, chuck, because from what I understand, they're there
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  Speaker 1: really are some great health benefits to eating bugs, and
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  Speaker 1: they're really good for you. Yeah, go ahead. Uh well,
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  Speaker 1: a hundred grams of crickets, we'll give you, um only
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  Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty one calories that's a uh forty
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  Speaker 1: nine of which come from fat, and you'll get thirteen
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  Speaker 1: grams of protein and seventy five milligrams of iron and
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  Speaker 1: five grams of carbohydrates. What's what's the one powerhouse insect
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  Speaker 1: if you're gonna if you're really looking to lose some
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  Speaker 1: weight but retain muscle mass, that kind of thing. What
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  Speaker 1: insect do you go for? One word? Caterpillar? Yeah, yes, caterpillar.
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  Speaker 1: They you can get twenty eight grams of protein for
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  Speaker 1: a hundred grams of caterpillar, as well as iron, vitamin
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  Speaker 1: B one and B three. Yeah, and actually I looked
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  Speaker 1: that up. I looked up salmon, and that's on par
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  Speaker 1: with salmon actually, right, which is great for your heart.
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  Speaker 1: It's great food. It's one of the all stars. So
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  Speaker 1: if you can't afford salmon, go out into your backyard
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  Speaker 1: and find some caterpillars. But there are some precautions you
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  Speaker 1: should take first if you're going to raise your own
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  Speaker 1: in x to eat or kept your own insects to eat, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, if you live in the United States, you
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  Speaker 1: probably shouldn't go out to your backyard and get anything
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  Speaker 1: because chances are they might have insecticide on them or something.
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  Speaker 1: But if you did want to collect some, you could
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  Speaker 1: capture them and feed them fresh grass for a few
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  Speaker 1: days and that it like cleans out the system at
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  Speaker 1: no time. Um. And if you're in a survival situation,
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  Speaker 1: obviously you'd want to eat some in whatever well not
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  Speaker 1: whatever body, Okay, Well, well here's where the warnings wisdom. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: there's a rule of thumb. There's really easy to remember. Um, red, orange, yellow,
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  Speaker 1: forget the fellow black, green, brown, wolf it down bare brown. Yeah, basically,
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  Speaker 1: anything is brightly colored or really pungent you want to
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  Speaker 1: stay away from because that's kind of their warning signal
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  Speaker 1: to the world that I'm poisonous and I can hurt you.
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  Speaker 1: So so stick to worms or grubs. Yeah, tons cool,
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  Speaker 1: and we recommend before you go eat and eat bugs,
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  Speaker 1: read how into fas you works on how stuff works
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  Speaker 1: dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an
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  Speaker 1: email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. H
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