January 12, 2012 • 34 mins
So which would you choose: an exclusive diet of bugs for the rest of your life, or an endless string of fermented feasts? In this "Would You Rather?" episode, Julie and Robert present the facts and let you decide which diet you'd choose.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. In
this podcast, we're gonna we're gonna start off by asking
you to take a journey with us, and I want
you to imagine yourself lost amid an apocalyptic waste land,
(00:25):
scorched her pyramids of bone, hauled out cities, silhouetting the
horizon against the dim red sun. You're starving, you're weak,
You're stumbling through the remnants of civilization, and then you
trip over something. If you fall, maybe you skin your knee,
you hardly notice because you're so hungry. And when you
get up on your your your feet again, you start
looking around. You start sifting through the ashes, and you
(00:45):
find a hatch and you open it and you crawl
down through the dark, and at the bottom of this
twisting tunnel you find this massive storeroom. It's filled with
shells and shelves of these strange jars, and you you
can pluckily. You have a light on you, one of
these windy d of course, yeah, yeah, because other you
can't find batteries unless you had your preparedness kit. Yeah,
(01:07):
you had, you had some some supplies in store. So
you crank up your little flashlight and you you notice
that the labels have all worn away, so you can't
read what's in them, but you can see through the
glass that they all contain dark shapes and murky liquids.
You've you've found pickled and fur minuted food items, all right.
That this makes your stomach turn a little, right, makes it?
(01:27):
It makes your stomach turn. And yet that anvil in
your stomach that keeps beating away, you know this hunger pangs.
He's gotta eat, gotta eat, says, could it be sour krout? Yeah?
But then you notice movements in the corner of the storeroom,
on the shelves across the ceiling, and you realize the
place is crawling with insects, delicious nutritious insects, Yes, big
(01:49):
lovely fattened concroaches. Specifically, what do you do? Yeah, which
which are you going to feast on? You have a
choice here. You can start cracking open some jars and
uh and and even in your state, you probably realize
that this is maybe all the pickled items left in
the world, So you can't just start opening until you
find something. Right, if you open a jar, you're probably
(02:10):
gonna need to go ahead and eat what's in that jar.
That's right. You have to be smart about that. Be
smart about it. Likewise, h you've got all these bugs,
you're just gonna have to I mean, but which ones
can you eat? Which one should you eat? Which ones
are gonna taste good? Do you have time or or
the energy to be choosy about it? And this is
what we're gonna do today. We're gonna walk you through
this wasteland and help you to make this choice. Should
(02:32):
you ever have to face some sort of apocalypse and
be faced with just fermented items fermented by bacteria, right
like sara kraut or a lovely juicy caterpillar or I
don't know, sa kata y. Yeah, and all the benefits
of this, by the way, I mean, actually we we
kind of turn our noses up about that here in
(02:55):
the Western world, but this is not so unusual in
other parts of the world. These these food items right,
these in in the same way that we're talking about
them in a sort of postmodern society of food choice situation.
They are also a huge part of our culinary past.
I think we touched a little on this in our
previous food episodes Ancient Foods that believe it was the
title of it. At some point we were hungry and
(03:16):
we looked around and we found bugs. At some point
we were we were hungry and realized we needed to
stick um away some food for the hard times. And
we discovered what pickling, what fermentation was all about. Yea,
and oftentimes by accident, right, I mean, if you put
honeywater out is eventually going to ferment into mead a
good tasty um craft of meat, right yeah, also beneficial
(03:41):
for apocalyptic survival, why not? Um? So, basically we're talking
about is remaking your food with microbes. And this is
already done to some extent, we just don't think about it. Chocolates, wine, cheese,
those are all products of fermentation. But of late there
have been fermentation activists in a wider food underground movement
(04:01):
extolling the joys of bacteria. Now, when it comes to pickles,
let me just touch base. They're real quick about the
two basic types of pickling. They're essentially two categories. The
first involves items preserved in vinegar, which is a strong
acid in which few bacteria can survive. UM, So you
think of things like bottled kosher cucumber pickles at the supermarket,
(04:24):
that sort of thing. And then you have this other
category where things are soaked in a salt brine that
encourages fermentation and the growth of this good bacteria that
we're talking about. It makes the food less vulnerable to
bad spoilage causing bacteria, so UM more common examples this
would be like kimch uh and cucumber dill pickles, Sauer
(04:47):
krauts a big one, right, And this this is really
important to you to think about this type of fermentation
because although it does allow bacteria to thrive, it's anaerobic conditions,
so it's it's thrive. Actually, I should say that pathogens
that could be really um horrible for us if we
ate them are stopped in their tracks because it is
(05:08):
an anaerobic environment. So there's no oxygen for those sort
of pathogens to like listeria for instance, um to actually
cultivate onto this food source. So what you get are
the good bacteria growing on to say like sauer kraut um,
and you've got the bad bacteria dying away. Yeah, it's
placed in an artificial environment, because we're in the authentic environment.
(05:31):
It would quickly be consumed, it would it would ride
it with decay. But if you took some sauer kraut,
you salted it, put a jar on the top, on
the jar and let it sit there for you know,
seventeen eighteen days. All of a sudden you have this
really good, nutritious food that is preserved for many, many months,
sometimes years. Right, And and the important thing here is
(05:52):
that this all emerges from a time when there was
no uh refrigerator to stick things, and there was preservatives
in your food. Uh, it was just not happening. Is
the precursor to cold storage. Yeah, yeah, And so we
end up with I mean, this is where you get
like Chutt and he's in India, Miso pickles in Japan's
um even uh well, pickled herring and Scandinavia, corned beef
(06:14):
in in Ireland, various sauces in Mexico, pickled pigs feet
in the United States. Um. One that I always find
interesting the the century egg or p done of China,
often hundred year old egg that's pickled and all um.
When when my family lived in Roddington, Newfoundland, Canada when
my dad worked for he worked for Grinful Health. But
(06:35):
there was a dentist, there was the various health personnel there.
They were kind of from all over the world, so
like like we were from the US. UH. There was
you know, was a doctor from India. There were doctors
from uh from various places in Canada. There's a guy
from Scotland. And then there was Dr Lowe M. And
Dr Lowe was was a Chinese extract and he had
(06:55):
he had one of these eggs and he would always try,
he would, he would it was. It was really big
on trying to convince my father to eat this egg.
He was like, you should come over and have the
egg sometime, and uh and and and my dad was like,
all right, maybe I'll try an easight, but you you can.
You have to eat it while I'm here. You have
to eat it while I'm present, Like he didn't want
a doctor needs to be present while you eat this egg.
(07:16):
With his argument but really, yeah, I don't know, but
you may have been getting around. But that's about to say,
and this is this really a hundred year old egg?
I don't know if it was really a hundred years old,
because I don't know how he would have. I've obtained
it there like he would have, I guess how to
have brought it with him, because rodic to Newfoundland didn't
have like a huge Chinese grocery by any stretch of regination.
It had a crab plant and well in generations of
(07:40):
people and his family would have preserved it and passed
it down, right, I guess, or he was or it
was just an egg that he boiled and it was
all a joke. I think so. But my point is
that you see pickling traditions in all these different cultures
and it becomes at least it a part of their
culinary tradition to varying degrees, depending the culinaria is right right.
(08:02):
And again fermentation, um, you know, largely accidental in the beginning,
but the alcohol and acids can preserve fruit and grains
for months, like I said, and it also changes the flavor,
it changes and it can change some of the properties.
So you know, in general it's pretty safe. Again, you know,
talking about how the anaerobic conditions, we will stop pathogens
in their tracks. So botuli is um, no big deal, right,
(08:23):
I mean, souer kute really is something that you could
make and it's it's going to be completely fine to eat,
you know, ten months later. Um. And you know it's
not just sara kute. We're talking about yogurt, not necessarily
yogurt ten months down the road. Um, but sour dough, bread, mead, sausages,
can and cheese. As you mentioned, some Scandinavian fish actually
(08:43):
prepared this way. There's the hack roll, for instance, the
poisonous ice shark, yeah, which if you eat it too fresh,
it's poisonous. But if you let it putrefy for six
weeks fermenting, and then it becomes something altogether different, which
sometimes it's called the p shark because it has a
slight um ammonia or urine smell, which just I mean again,
(09:06):
come on, guys, you've got it in jar. It's the
post apocalyptic scenario. You can't get a tow upity about it. Yeah.
I actually know a guy who a friend of mine
who works for a gaming company. They had some people
bring in a bunch of these survival foods. I think
I mentioned this before, but that he actually tried the
P shark and he said it wouldn't He actually wasn't
that bad. Um And neither was the pickled whale blubber.
(09:29):
He said that was actually pretty good too, um, but
but it was it was other things that were a
little grim, but the pickled sea life not so bad. Well,
this is a delicacy, right, and you have to understand
if you're in this culture, you're probably going to have
more of an affinity for it. And only that when
we talked about I can't remember if it was we
were talking about the sea urchins, but we found out
(09:50):
that there was a bacteria particular to Japanese people who
can break down seaweed um that that we lack here,
say in the United States. Right of it comes down
to the whole argument that we are cities of bacteria,
but we are there, we are creatures of bacteria and uh,
and the the whole idea of of eliminating bacteria from
(10:10):
our bodies can can be harmful at times where there's
so there's a careful balance. Now we've talked about the
gut flora before, um and and that's actually it actually
plays a big role in people who advocate not pickled
only diets, not sauerkraut only gets, but diets that include
these these traditional ferment items yeah. Yeah, and just to
bring up the stud again, we are made up of
(10:31):
one trillion cells and host ten trillion bacterial cells, so
the great majority of DNA and this is actually bacterial
and not human. Um. Now, consider that it takes four
years for your gut flora to recover after a round
of antibiotics, and you can see why we're storing good bacteria.
Body is so important to your immune system. And you
(10:51):
think about fermented vegetables and they actually contain natural populations
of lactic acid bacteria. And this is the kind of
bacteria that we see in pro prebiotics that help maintain
our health and our guts. Um. And again, as you say,
it regulates our overall health and in some cases it
actually can help your mental state. We know that your
(11:11):
gut produces chemicals that trigger sleep and um and certainly
we know that the sarantonin is released by your gut. Right. Uh,
so this isn't interesting. This is from the article Nature
Spoils by Brookhart Builder. Yeah, this is great. This is
a New Yorker And uh, if you look it up
(11:32):
on the line, I think you have to have like
a membership to get the full version. Yes, behind a paywall,
but it's probably worth it if this is a topic
that's really intriguing. And they also have an audio file available,
so when you're not listening to this podcast, check it out,
switch on over to New Yorker for a moment. But
one of the people that build your interview says, there's
no such thing as an individual and this is coming
(11:53):
from a Lynn Marculist, and she's a professor of biology
at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and she says,
what we see as animals are partly just integrated sets
of bacteria. I mean, we're just we're backter bots, We're
like corporations. Really, yeah, if we're just we're just hosting.
I mean, that's it's very interesting when when you start
to break it down that way to see the ways
(12:15):
in which we um move through the world. I mean,
how much of that is directed by bacteria? How many
of the choices that we make are directed by bacteria?
About the stuff that's going on in our guts. You know,
when we feel an emotion or we feel a drive
to do something, a lot of that is predicated on
on the wellness factor of our guts. And in fact,
(12:35):
this is such an interesting uh field that there is
a second human genome project going on and they're trying
to map all the thousands of bacteria in our bodies.
So instead of focusing on pathogens um as they've done
in the past, they're really trying to focus on the
symbiotic relationship that we have with bacteria. Yeah, we've discussed this,
uh in various levels in the past. The idea that
(12:58):
these things in our lives, these bacteria on up to
uh parasitic organisms. Uh, these are things we have coevolved with,
so we we have evolved over time to exist with them,
some in varying levels of symbiosis. I mean, that's another thing,
just that the realization that the idea of parasite and
non parasite is not so cut and dry. In some cases,
(13:19):
there's all there's all this gray area of symbiosis where
in some cases it's a little more one sided than others.
You know. Well, we've talked about parasite therapies before too.
Of course, this is not a d I why project
for anybody at home, but there is some evidence coming
out of medical community that parasites can help in some instances. UM.
But like I just wanted to go back real quick
(13:41):
to again something like sauerkraut and the fact that it
does have that lactic acid bacteria, but only that, Um,
there's a bunch of other nutritious elements to enzymes, bacteria
that are being created because of the fermenting process. So
you could get things that are really rich in vitamin C,
you know, according to this process. Um. The problem, though,
(14:03):
of course, comes when you take a really great idea
like this and you extend it to you know, it's
the degree, right, So you take this idea of symbiosis
and you say it can be beneficial for humans, and
then you try to apply it to say something like
raw meat. Okay, yes, you're talking about high meat, of course,
(14:23):
high meat, and not high as in cannabis, but high
as termed by eskimos who um have used caribou and
seal raw seal not just as something that's nutrition for them,
but also as a cultural artifact. Yeah. And in fact,
apparently this is according to the article, um I think
we're talking about, and the New Yorker said, so that
(14:44):
I believe that a regular serving of decayed, harder liver
can have a quote tremendous viagra effect on the elderly.
So yeah, now this is also this fact here is
coming to the author of that from a man by
the name of a Jonas voter Plu, who is his
whole big idea was the primal diet. Yeah, and uh,
(15:04):
and I think we've discussed in the past. Hole, there
are a lot of concerns with with with any well
with any crazy diet that comes along the path, because
they tend to be um. They tend to be someone
on the extreme edge of something like, for instance, sauer
kraut diet. I said, you wouldn't want to die of
just sauer kraut, But doing a search for sauerkraut diet
just out of curiosity did turn up some results. Like
(15:25):
you know, somebody's gonna advocate it. So this guy in
particularly who was like high meat. Uh, it's it's good
for you. It's part of our evolutionary past. We're going around,
were occasionally eating the rotten carcass here and there, so
and and and our body needs that. It's like a
nice kick in the face from the bacterium world. That's right.
That the the idea that we evolved with bacteria and parasites,
(15:48):
so therefore it must be good for us to eat
some rotten meat with parasites every once a while. That's
actually probably not such a great idea, it turns out,
and that's what's been extrapolated from this whole symbiosis, right. Um.
I just can't and I can't get this image of
like what those commercials would be for for like this
viagra of of rotten meat, you know, like you always
(16:09):
see the guy golfing and the commercials with viagra. I mean,
I'm just trying to imagine how they're going to roll
that out with with seal meat or a rotten caribou.
You know, well, you know, we we've we've touched on
examples in the past, like we mentioned in the Ancient Foods,
we mentioned Kivak, the green landing tradition of of of
catching all the little birds, tiny birds, and then you
(16:30):
you put them in a seal skin and you just
hold just like like after you catch them, snapped a little.
Next take them home in a sack, stuff them in
the seal skin, get all the air out, and then
bury it under rocks and let it let them ferment
in there. That you know, that's there's that, but you
have the fermenting process, fermenting process there. Even though essentially
you have just birds in a sack of skins under
(16:52):
some rocks. Um, you know, the surface it looks very
similar to hey, I found some dead birds, let's chow down.
But but there, but there is a chemical process going on.
It turns out you do need to convert some of
the foods that you eat to make them palatable, um
and digestible. So yeah, I mean this this is all
part and parcel of these underground food movements that are
(17:14):
taking hold right now. But this was from the article
that that that actually there are scent molecules that have
been identified with decaying meat. And these are the sort
of scent molecules that usually send warning signs who are
brain right, like don't eat this. Um. They've been identified
as cadaverine and putrescing. Of course that's after putrid and putrescence.
(17:36):
So I mean, just that alone makes you think, perhaps,
I you know, if those are that the molecules those
are emitting, and that's what we're calling them, perhaps I
should not eat any high meat. Yeah. Well I don't know.
I certainly have not, to my knowledge, had any high meat. UM.
I may have had a questionable sandwich in the past,
but it was by accident, by accident, but it's not
(17:58):
advertised as high meat. But but certainly I would love
to hear from anybody who has so. Yeah. So now,
if you go in a cafe and you see high meat,
you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not It doesn't mean
it's just borre's head or something, or some sort of
artisan cut or you know, cannabis laden. Well, let's move
away from all these strange murky jars and their fermented secrets.
Uh and uh, and start looking at the insects calling
(18:19):
around this place as well. Let's that's the sound of
the roaches crawling all over the table right now, excellent, Well,
which one's of these guys should we eat? Let's let's
discuss mmm. Okay, so we're talking about into mafagy, right,
the practice of eating insects, including arachnids and maria pods,
which are centipedes or little friends centipedes um. And And
(18:40):
here's you know, a newsplush if you don't know about
this already, If you're eating processed foods, you are eating bugs. Yes,
it's just a fact. The FDA has an acceptable level
of insect fragments and all canned and boxed goods. Oh yes,
I like, for instance, uh, take figs, whether you're talking
about fresh figs or or a lovely fig bass. The
(19:00):
cookie cake item, um, fig newtons, Well they're various, big
based that's one of them. But you can, I mean
you can also just get a baked like fig cake
fig wafer thing at the most bakeries. Oh yeah, wink wink,
nudge nudge. Yeah. Yeah, but there you're gonna those are
likely to contain fig wasps just because they're the fig
(19:21):
itself depends on these tiny little wasps that have to
go in and take care of the pollination. So I
mean you have that, you have just bugs showing up
in in any kind of agricultural crop. Um, it's just
gonna happen. You're gonna eat some bugs. Yeah. And then
just during the process too, uh that sometimes the canning,
in the in the like the eating process, like you're
(19:43):
gonna get yeah, you know, sometimes I just start buzzing
around and I start munching. But no, I mean in
the process themselves. I mean that there's there's a food item,
there are you know, little microscopic bugs all over, plus
the ones that we can see and they're gonna get
in there and chow down as well, right and then
U it is in terms of just the evolution of man.
(20:03):
People have had to eat and if you're looking around
for things to eat, bugs are everywhere. I mean, it's
basically we're it's essentially an insect planet. When you start
breaking down some of the numbers, um and and for
the most part, we don't you know, especially here in
the States, we don't think about about eating the bugs.
But the next time you're on a summer day and
just look around you and and just take in the bugs,
(20:25):
especially on a nice cicada afternoon. Just listen to the
because we we mentioned on that podcast I believe about
the cicadas. These are tasty guys. Um Or, or the
next time you're out doing a little work in the
yard and you're digging in the dirt and you come
across some grubs, just I mean, look at we grubs
are such amazing um like nuggets of nutrition, because because
(20:48):
these are anytime you have like a a larva pupa situation,
this is this is an animal loaded down with the
goods to get it through this stage of its life.
So it's just it's just a very nutritious morsel. Yeah,
and then think back to the past. I mean this
is this was eaten good than neighborhood, right, And mean,
if you had some locusts and honey, you are living
life pretty large. So it makes sense that this would
(21:10):
be a really good source of protein forests, and in fact,
in a lot of Southeast Asian countries, this is not
just a delicacy, but it's something that you would eat
all the time. Right. It's a street food in some places, right, Yeah,
Like various food shows have wound up on the streets
of Bangkok with somebody going to a food cart and
eating insects out of a cart, and they're generally it's
generally done for kind of like a gross out factor,
(21:32):
unless it's like Anthony Bourdain, who tends to really get
on a high horse about traditional quote unquote peasant food. Yeah,
and he has actually eaten seal meat with asking moments before. Yeah,
so watch out for Bourdaine after he said the seal meat.
But when I was in Bangkok several years back, my
wife and I were actually looking around hoping to find
(21:54):
the cart with the but I mean it's it's with
it with the insects, but it's very confusing out there
on the streets looking around at the different cards, and
eventually you just really get kind of an overload decision
fatigue kind of a thing. And yeah, and you can't
sess out the crickets. Yeah, but I wish we'd found
because I really wanted to try them. I'm not opposed
to eating the insects, especially when it's part of some
(22:15):
sort of a culinary tradition. Well, I mean, and again,
it's not that weird. It seems odd to us, but
what we're talking about here is some huge health benefits. Um,
the average insect contains protein exactly ten percent omega, three
five percent minerals, and five percent sugar and two percent fat. Yeah, okay,
so I mean this is this is a great source
(22:37):
of energy right here. Uh. Different insects have different health benefits,
with varying amounts of calories, fat, and carbohydrates. For instants,
for instance, excuse me, one hundred grams of crickets contain
one hundred and twenty one calories and their chock full
of calcium and iron. While our little caterpillar friends, uh
before they become lovely butterflies, we deprive them of that
(22:59):
unfurling of their wings. They have twenty eight crams of
protein per one grams, and they're also a good source
of vitamins B one and three. Yeah, well, the I
mean the butterflies has it's not going to be nutritious,
is that catapulary you want? It's kind of like if
you wanted to hijack a space shuttle for its fuel.
You wouldn't want to get the space shuttle in orbit.
You would want to get it to want it has
(23:20):
all the external tanks on it before it drops plod. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
it's the payload you want. You want to harvest that
payload because the payload is energy that allows this organism
to change from one state to another and as carnivore
well as omnivorce. Rather, um, we are saying, hey, I
want that payload, Let me have that energy, because I
mean we've discussed before pretty much at every level. Um,
(23:42):
to eat on this in this planet and to consume
energy just to steal energy unless you happen to practice photosynthesis,
and even the most devoked vegans and vegetarians I know
do not practice photosynthesis themselves. Yeah, and blame Margine blame Margine,
blame our brain for the energy drain. Actually right talked
about that because it needs a lot of energy. So
(24:04):
that's why we have to go after this um and
that's why our forebearers had to do it. Uh, so
let's talk about this. There are one thousand, four hundred
seventeen species of edible insects and nearly three thousand ethnic
groups that currently practice into mafagi. And most of these
insects are eaten in the larval in the pupil stages um,
though some are are pretty good from you know, all
(24:26):
the way into adulthood. Right, nice little cricket and talking.
The list of edibles is the beetle with three hundred
and forty four varieties, ants, when wasps with three hundred
fourteen varieties, and then butterflies. They do make the list, actually, yeah, yeah,
even though even though they're the I think all flash
no flesh, moths, grasshoppers, and crickets. Well, I can see
(24:50):
months they're a little fatter, and I've seen the cat
eat them, so that's funny. I'll call I actually call
him my cat Renfro because he loves a good spiderway
full of flies stuff. Um, I actually have a quick
recipe here for anybody interested. I found this on a
Nova article about bugs you can eat um, which has
a number of different like from Australia, China, et cetera.
(25:13):
But this one was for grass hopper tacos for Mexico.
And this is all you need. A half pound of grasshoppers,
two cloves of garlic minced, one lemon, little salt to ripe,
avocados mashed, and then six tortillas h corner flour. So
you didn't you just roast the medium sized grapp reshoppers
for ten minutes and degree oven, and you tossed in
(25:35):
the garlic, the lemon, salt to taste, spread the mashed
to avocad on the tortilla, and then sprinkle on the grasshoppers.
You know, there you go. And I was just thinking
too that if you didn't have time to cook, another
advantage you just get on your bike or your motorcycle
and just open your mouth for a couple of months.
Well it's what I think. The cooking is a little
a little different. I was trying to dress it up here,
(25:56):
and then you turn it back into riding around on
a motorcycle eating live bugs. Well I'm just saying that
if you're on the go, I mean, you don't need
fast food, right, I mean the fast food is available
to you just within mirror seconds. That's another thing that
comes to mind, fast food. Like I see people eating
fast food, and I hope I don't come off to
judge you here, but you see some of the things
that people are eating, and you're like, that is so fried,
(26:18):
Like it's just been fried to death. Like they could
have fried a chicken wing and then remove the chicken
wing and just sent you and just served you the shell,
Like it could be anything at the middle of that
fried bundle of good that you just purchased in a
styrofoam container. So why not bugs? Okay? So and and
that's that's a good place to talk about. You know,
why we don't go ahead and cultivate bugs on a
(26:39):
large scale, right, um? You know, besides some of the
cons here of you know, like don't pick any poisonous
bugs or toxic bugs. Right, it's a pretty good idea
to use bugs as as a sort of um many
um or micro farming system for us, right, because you
don't need the land you know that that we need
(27:01):
with livestock. Um you don't need the equipment, like the
huge factory equipment is is really pricey um and and
this is really easy to Also you don't have the
veterinary medicine um and and then all the antibiotics that
go along with it. Yeah, you're and you're also don't
have to worry about naming a cricket before you eat it,
you know, well though I don't know. I don't though.
(27:23):
If you have like a thousand millipedes, it's probably it's uh,
probably not naming them. I have also read data before
talking about the food costs of exploring other worlds with
human space exploration, and those frequently come back around the
idea of using insects for your protein. Yep, yep, just
because it's less space. Like try and raise a cow
on a spaceship versus raising some millipedes. It's going to
(27:46):
favor the millipies, right. Or if we ever established ourselves
on another planet, right, Um, you would probably not be
able to harvest lettuce and cows and so on and
so forth. But hey, just bring some you know, larva
with you and probably have some success. Um. Actually, one
hundred pounds of feed produces ten pounds of beef. The
same amount of feed would produce more than four times
(28:07):
that amount in crickets. And that's just the feet. So
we're not talking again about the land which is getting
pretty scarce for us, and so on and so forth. Um, So,
I don't know, there's a there's an argument there, uh
that perhaps this is going to be a sustainable food
source for us in the future, just as fermented foods. Maybe. Yeah.
I I I tend to imagine that we as a people,
(28:29):
uh more or less talking about like the US, you know,
audience audiences here, that we could I think we could
get past the bug thing, get past the eating bug thing.
I mean, because look at some of the stuff we
already eat. I mean, we're already eating shrimp in many
many of us are eating shrimps, yeah, right, so they're
basically they already look basically the same. And we're eating
(28:50):
higher spiders of the sea right right, And we're eating
higher organisms, were eating cuter organisms, and we're eating plenty
of animals that that look gross. So I mean, I
think we could get over that, that that mental barrier
to eating bugs rather quickly. Well, as we discussed in
the Don't Eat the Panda episode, we have this this
moral distancing that we use through semantic distance distancings. So
(29:12):
we use certain words to kind of give us some
space from what the actual item is, or to change
that definition of what that thing is in our mind
right exact. For example, the grasshopper tacos versus driving around
with your mouth though, because the grasshopper that sounds good
if you would, Well, you got me with the garlic there.
Well yeah, and then advocat you put avocat as in
anything it's gonna be good. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I
(29:33):
mean I will say that I was like, I don't know,
I'm a vegetarian, but perhaps this is something that I
could do, Uh, particularly if I'm in a post apocalyptic situation. Well,
let's get back to the post apocalyptic situation. Then, which
are you going to choose? If you have to choose
between those those jars of pickled wonders or the creepy
crawleys in the corners, which one are you going to
chow down? Well, I will say that, um, the more
(29:55):
nutritious option actually seems to be insects to me. Yeah,
because you although it's just insects is one category, it
seems like you have a huge variety in terms of
some of them nutritive values that it possesses, whereas the
comfort level is definitely with fermented foods. Although I am
not a fan of the pickle, I found this weird
(30:17):
that you you don't like the pickles, like anything pickled
like uh sauer kraut. Huh. It's just you know, But
I would probably get over that, and in fact, in
a post apocalyptic scenario, I would probably go with both. Right, Well, yeah,
I think that your chance of survival, you know, eating
some cockroaches and some some two years old sauer kraut
(30:39):
is probably gonna Yeah, in reality, you would want to
go unless maybe there's a genie here that is saying
that you have to choose one or the other. I
don't know. We didn't introduce that in the original questions.
I'm not going to force it on everyone here and now,
but I would I would tend to even knowing what
we know now, I would I would still probably go
with the pickled content. So would you, Yeah, I don't.
I like plenty of pickled food, so I feel like
there's there's a lot of diversity there in terms of
(31:02):
the things that are pickled. So I mean, I could
I could have some fish. I could have you know,
I could have some cabbage. I can I can get
my h my poisonous shark and spread the sower crout
on it and put it on. Um. Well, I wouldn't
be able to put it on a bun unless somebody's
has pickled buns. You can squeeze out the innerts of
the birds. Yeah, give you act. Yeah, so yeah I would.
(31:26):
I would have to go with the pickles. But but
but that's just me and I love German foods. So
there you go. Uh see, I think it all builts
down into comfort level. UM. We'd love to hear from
you guys out there. What what would you pick if
you had to bugs only or sarakraut essentially only? And
and we would like to know your experiences with eating
(31:47):
odd or very normal pickled items? But your what's your
your approach to them? What's the weirdest pickled thing you've eaten? Um?
Or the weirdest pickled or the most interesting pickled the
food item in your own colinary history? Um? And then
what's your what are your experiences with eating bucks? I?
Like I said, I myself have not have the opportunity
(32:07):
to eat that many insects. Um, I would Well, I
guess I always have the opportunity to eat them. There
right now, I see a little fly over there. Actually, yeah,
well there's that. But in terms of actually an actual
culinary exploration of the insect world, I have not really
pursued it. So I would love to hear from people
who have. And on that note, uh, let's ask the
(32:28):
robot to bring us over some mail. Robot, funny, funny,
he brought you pickled hearing now your mail is all
wet with complaining. Um. Well, first, we had a couple
of people to point out that we recently did a
sword episode, The Way of the Sword. We talked about
the the the history, the manufacturer and culture of of
(32:51):
sword play and sword sword smiths and uh and like
the day that it published, I believe Bob Anderson died
at the age of eighty nine. The Sword Sword Yeah,
oh that's right. He did Star Wars in Prince's Pride, right, yeah, yeah,
he was a pupil of Errol Flynn's. He also did
(33:12):
like Lord of the Ring movies, and and he did Highlanding,
so everyone's favorite. Yeah, well the Highlander. You know, if
you've ever been like a thirteen year old boy. You
gotta love highlanding, even if if most of it doesn't
really hold up, you could probably be a thirteen year
old girl. Yeah, I guess you know Christopher Lambert, he
was pretty pretty dreamy. Or or Clancy Brown if you
(33:35):
like the you know, gruffer type of guy. I guess
you know Fancy Clancy. Yeah, yeah, SpongeBob voice now or
her husband Phil asked to however long SpongeBob but not really. Yeah.
Mr Crab is where the crab guy that owns the
the Krusty Crab good place that SpongeBob works out. Yeah, yeah,
that's Clancy Brown, the Kurgain. Okay, we could probably do
(33:56):
a whole episode on SpongeBob. I'm just discovering SpongeBob. I've
never really watched it before. But there's no you know,
daily show right now. We've been watching other things, and
so we've been watching episodes of SpongeBob and it's amazingly
education and you know, actually, well biologists created that show.
Oh yeah, yeah, I got that about that. Um. Well,
so there we have it. Uh, if you have anything
(34:18):
you would like to share with us, um, things related
to the podcasts that we've discussed in the past, or
the or the more recent ones. Let us know. You
can find us on Facebook as stuff to Blow the Mind,
and we are handle on Twitter is Below the Mind,
and you can always drop us a line at blow
the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
(34:39):
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. In
this podcast, we're gonna we're gonna start off by asking
you to take a journey with us, and I want
you to imagine yourself lost amid an apocalyptic waste land,
(00:25):
scorched her pyramids of bone, hauled out cities, silhouetting the
horizon against the dim red sun. You're starving, you're weak,
You're stumbling through the remnants of civilization, and then you
trip over something. If you fall, maybe you skin your knee,
you hardly notice because you're so hungry. And when you
get up on your your your feet again, you start
looking around. You start sifting through the ashes, and you
(00:45):
find a hatch and you open it and you crawl
down through the dark, and at the bottom of this
twisting tunnel you find this massive storeroom. It's filled with
shells and shelves of these strange jars, and you you
can pluckily. You have a light on you, one of
these windy d of course, yeah, yeah, because other you
can't find batteries unless you had your preparedness kit. Yeah,
(01:07):
you had, you had some some supplies in store. So
you crank up your little flashlight and you you notice
that the labels have all worn away, so you can't
read what's in them, but you can see through the
glass that they all contain dark shapes and murky liquids.
You've you've found pickled and fur minuted food items, all right.
That this makes your stomach turn a little, right, makes it?
(01:27):
It makes your stomach turn. And yet that anvil in
your stomach that keeps beating away, you know this hunger pangs.
He's gotta eat, gotta eat, says, could it be sour krout? Yeah?
But then you notice movements in the corner of the storeroom,
on the shelves across the ceiling, and you realize the
place is crawling with insects, delicious nutritious insects, Yes, big
(01:49):
lovely fattened concroaches. Specifically, what do you do? Yeah, which
which are you going to feast on? You have a
choice here. You can start cracking open some jars and
uh and and even in your state, you probably realize
that this is maybe all the pickled items left in
the world, So you can't just start opening until you
find something. Right, if you open a jar, you're probably
(02:10):
gonna need to go ahead and eat what's in that jar.
That's right. You have to be smart about that. Be
smart about it. Likewise, h you've got all these bugs,
you're just gonna have to I mean, but which ones
can you eat? Which one should you eat? Which ones
are gonna taste good? Do you have time or or
the energy to be choosy about it? And this is
what we're gonna do today. We're gonna walk you through
this wasteland and help you to make this choice. Should
(02:32):
you ever have to face some sort of apocalypse and
be faced with just fermented items fermented by bacteria, right
like sara kraut or a lovely juicy caterpillar or I
don't know, sa kata y. Yeah, and all the benefits
of this, by the way, I mean, actually we we
kind of turn our noses up about that here in
(02:55):
the Western world, but this is not so unusual in
other parts of the world. These these food items right,
these in in the same way that we're talking about
them in a sort of postmodern society of food choice situation.
They are also a huge part of our culinary past.
I think we touched a little on this in our
previous food episodes Ancient Foods that believe it was the
title of it. At some point we were hungry and
(03:16):
we looked around and we found bugs. At some point
we were we were hungry and realized we needed to
stick um away some food for the hard times. And
we discovered what pickling, what fermentation was all about. Yea,
and oftentimes by accident, right, I mean, if you put
honeywater out is eventually going to ferment into mead a
good tasty um craft of meat, right yeah, also beneficial
(03:41):
for apocalyptic survival, why not? Um? So, basically we're talking
about is remaking your food with microbes. And this is
already done to some extent, we just don't think about it. Chocolates, wine, cheese,
those are all products of fermentation. But of late there
have been fermentation activists in a wider food underground movement
(04:01):
extolling the joys of bacteria. Now, when it comes to pickles,
let me just touch base. They're real quick about the
two basic types of pickling. They're essentially two categories. The
first involves items preserved in vinegar, which is a strong
acid in which few bacteria can survive. UM, So you
think of things like bottled kosher cucumber pickles at the supermarket,
(04:24):
that sort of thing. And then you have this other
category where things are soaked in a salt brine that
encourages fermentation and the growth of this good bacteria that
we're talking about. It makes the food less vulnerable to
bad spoilage causing bacteria, so UM more common examples this
would be like kimch uh and cucumber dill pickles, Sauer
(04:47):
krauts a big one, right, And this this is really
important to you to think about this type of fermentation
because although it does allow bacteria to thrive, it's anaerobic conditions,
so it's it's thrive. Actually, I should say that pathogens
that could be really um horrible for us if we
ate them are stopped in their tracks because it is
(05:08):
an anaerobic environment. So there's no oxygen for those sort
of pathogens to like listeria for instance, um to actually
cultivate onto this food source. So what you get are
the good bacteria growing on to say like sauer kraut um,
and you've got the bad bacteria dying away. Yeah, it's
placed in an artificial environment, because we're in the authentic environment.
(05:31):
It would quickly be consumed, it would it would ride
it with decay. But if you took some sauer kraut,
you salted it, put a jar on the top, on
the jar and let it sit there for you know,
seventeen eighteen days. All of a sudden you have this
really good, nutritious food that is preserved for many, many months,
sometimes years. Right, And and the important thing here is
(05:52):
that this all emerges from a time when there was
no uh refrigerator to stick things, and there was preservatives
in your food. Uh, it was just not happening. Is
the precursor to cold storage. Yeah, yeah, And so we
end up with I mean, this is where you get
like Chutt and he's in India, Miso pickles in Japan's
um even uh well, pickled herring and Scandinavia, corned beef
(06:14):
in in Ireland, various sauces in Mexico, pickled pigs feet
in the United States. Um. One that I always find
interesting the the century egg or p done of China,
often hundred year old egg that's pickled and all um.
When when my family lived in Roddington, Newfoundland, Canada when
my dad worked for he worked for Grinful Health. But
(06:35):
there was a dentist, there was the various health personnel there.
They were kind of from all over the world, so
like like we were from the US. UH. There was
you know, was a doctor from India. There were doctors
from uh from various places in Canada. There's a guy
from Scotland. And then there was Dr Lowe M. And
Dr Lowe was was a Chinese extract and he had
(06:55):
he had one of these eggs and he would always try,
he would, he would it was. It was really big
on trying to convince my father to eat this egg.
He was like, you should come over and have the
egg sometime, and uh and and and my dad was like,
all right, maybe I'll try an easight, but you you can.
You have to eat it while I'm here. You have
to eat it while I'm present, Like he didn't want
a doctor needs to be present while you eat this egg.
(07:16):
With his argument but really, yeah, I don't know, but
you may have been getting around. But that's about to say,
and this is this really a hundred year old egg?
I don't know if it was really a hundred years old,
because I don't know how he would have. I've obtained
it there like he would have, I guess how to
have brought it with him, because rodic to Newfoundland didn't
have like a huge Chinese grocery by any stretch of regination.
It had a crab plant and well in generations of
(07:40):
people and his family would have preserved it and passed
it down, right, I guess, or he was or it
was just an egg that he boiled and it was
all a joke. I think so. But my point is
that you see pickling traditions in all these different cultures
and it becomes at least it a part of their
culinary tradition to varying degrees, depending the culinaria is right right.
(08:02):
And again fermentation, um, you know, largely accidental in the beginning,
but the alcohol and acids can preserve fruit and grains
for months, like I said, and it also changes the flavor,
it changes and it can change some of the properties.
So you know, in general it's pretty safe. Again, you know,
talking about how the anaerobic conditions, we will stop pathogens
in their tracks. So botuli is um, no big deal, right,
(08:23):
I mean, souer kute really is something that you could
make and it's it's going to be completely fine to eat,
you know, ten months later. Um. And you know it's
not just sara kute. We're talking about yogurt, not necessarily
yogurt ten months down the road. Um, but sour dough, bread, mead, sausages,
can and cheese. As you mentioned, some Scandinavian fish actually
(08:43):
prepared this way. There's the hack roll, for instance, the
poisonous ice shark, yeah, which if you eat it too fresh,
it's poisonous. But if you let it putrefy for six
weeks fermenting, and then it becomes something altogether different, which
sometimes it's called the p shark because it has a
slight um ammonia or urine smell, which just I mean again,
(09:06):
come on, guys, you've got it in jar. It's the
post apocalyptic scenario. You can't get a tow upity about it. Yeah.
I actually know a guy who a friend of mine
who works for a gaming company. They had some people
bring in a bunch of these survival foods. I think
I mentioned this before, but that he actually tried the
P shark and he said it wouldn't He actually wasn't
that bad. Um And neither was the pickled whale blubber.
(09:29):
He said that was actually pretty good too, um, but
but it was it was other things that were a
little grim, but the pickled sea life not so bad. Well,
this is a delicacy, right, and you have to understand
if you're in this culture, you're probably going to have
more of an affinity for it. And only that when
we talked about I can't remember if it was we
were talking about the sea urchins, but we found out
(09:50):
that there was a bacteria particular to Japanese people who
can break down seaweed um that that we lack here,
say in the United States. Right of it comes down
to the whole argument that we are cities of bacteria,
but we are there, we are creatures of bacteria and uh,
and the the whole idea of of eliminating bacteria from
(10:10):
our bodies can can be harmful at times where there's
so there's a careful balance. Now we've talked about the
gut flora before, um and and that's actually it actually
plays a big role in people who advocate not pickled
only diets, not sauerkraut only gets, but diets that include
these these traditional ferment items yeah. Yeah, and just to
bring up the stud again, we are made up of
(10:31):
one trillion cells and host ten trillion bacterial cells, so
the great majority of DNA and this is actually bacterial
and not human. Um. Now, consider that it takes four
years for your gut flora to recover after a round
of antibiotics, and you can see why we're storing good bacteria.
Body is so important to your immune system. And you
(10:51):
think about fermented vegetables and they actually contain natural populations
of lactic acid bacteria. And this is the kind of
bacteria that we see in pro prebiotics that help maintain
our health and our guts. Um. And again, as you say,
it regulates our overall health and in some cases it
actually can help your mental state. We know that your
(11:11):
gut produces chemicals that trigger sleep and um and certainly
we know that the sarantonin is released by your gut. Right. Uh,
so this isn't interesting. This is from the article Nature
Spoils by Brookhart Builder. Yeah, this is great. This is
a New Yorker And uh, if you look it up
(11:32):
on the line, I think you have to have like
a membership to get the full version. Yes, behind a paywall,
but it's probably worth it if this is a topic
that's really intriguing. And they also have an audio file available,
so when you're not listening to this podcast, check it out,
switch on over to New Yorker for a moment. But
one of the people that build your interview says, there's
no such thing as an individual and this is coming
(11:53):
from a Lynn Marculist, and she's a professor of biology
at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and she says,
what we see as animals are partly just integrated sets
of bacteria. I mean, we're just we're backter bots, We're
like corporations. Really, yeah, if we're just we're just hosting.
I mean, that's it's very interesting when when you start
to break it down that way to see the ways
(12:15):
in which we um move through the world. I mean,
how much of that is directed by bacteria? How many
of the choices that we make are directed by bacteria?
About the stuff that's going on in our guts. You know,
when we feel an emotion or we feel a drive
to do something, a lot of that is predicated on
on the wellness factor of our guts. And in fact,
(12:35):
this is such an interesting uh field that there is
a second human genome project going on and they're trying
to map all the thousands of bacteria in our bodies.
So instead of focusing on pathogens um as they've done
in the past, they're really trying to focus on the
symbiotic relationship that we have with bacteria. Yeah, we've discussed this,
uh in various levels in the past. The idea that
(12:58):
these things in our lives, these bacteria on up to
uh parasitic organisms. Uh, these are things we have coevolved with,
so we we have evolved over time to exist with them,
some in varying levels of symbiosis. I mean, that's another thing,
just that the realization that the idea of parasite and
non parasite is not so cut and dry. In some cases,
(13:19):
there's all there's all this gray area of symbiosis where
in some cases it's a little more one sided than others.
You know. Well, we've talked about parasite therapies before too.
Of course, this is not a d I why project
for anybody at home, but there is some evidence coming
out of medical community that parasites can help in some instances. UM.
But like I just wanted to go back real quick
(13:41):
to again something like sauerkraut and the fact that it
does have that lactic acid bacteria, but only that, Um,
there's a bunch of other nutritious elements to enzymes, bacteria
that are being created because of the fermenting process. So
you could get things that are really rich in vitamin C,
you know, according to this process. Um. The problem, though,
(14:03):
of course, comes when you take a really great idea
like this and you extend it to you know, it's
the degree, right, So you take this idea of symbiosis
and you say it can be beneficial for humans, and
then you try to apply it to say something like
raw meat. Okay, yes, you're talking about high meat, of course,
(14:23):
high meat, and not high as in cannabis, but high
as termed by eskimos who um have used caribou and
seal raw seal not just as something that's nutrition for them,
but also as a cultural artifact. Yeah. And in fact,
apparently this is according to the article, um I think
we're talking about, and the New Yorker said, so that
(14:44):
I believe that a regular serving of decayed, harder liver
can have a quote tremendous viagra effect on the elderly.
So yeah, now this is also this fact here is
coming to the author of that from a man by
the name of a Jonas voter Plu, who is his
whole big idea was the primal diet. Yeah, and uh,
(15:04):
and I think we've discussed in the past. Hole, there
are a lot of concerns with with with any well
with any crazy diet that comes along the path, because
they tend to be um. They tend to be someone
on the extreme edge of something like, for instance, sauer
kraut diet. I said, you wouldn't want to die of
just sauer kraut, But doing a search for sauerkraut diet
just out of curiosity did turn up some results. Like
(15:25):
you know, somebody's gonna advocate it. So this guy in
particularly who was like high meat. Uh, it's it's good
for you. It's part of our evolutionary past. We're going around,
were occasionally eating the rotten carcass here and there, so
and and and our body needs that. It's like a
nice kick in the face from the bacterium world. That's right.
That the the idea that we evolved with bacteria and parasites,
(15:48):
so therefore it must be good for us to eat
some rotten meat with parasites every once a while. That's
actually probably not such a great idea, it turns out,
and that's what's been extrapolated from this whole symbiosis, right. Um.
I just can't and I can't get this image of
like what those commercials would be for for like this
viagra of of rotten meat, you know, like you always
(16:09):
see the guy golfing and the commercials with viagra. I mean,
I'm just trying to imagine how they're going to roll
that out with with seal meat or a rotten caribou.
You know, well, you know, we we've we've touched on
examples in the past, like we mentioned in the Ancient Foods,
we mentioned Kivak, the green landing tradition of of of
catching all the little birds, tiny birds, and then you
(16:30):
you put them in a seal skin and you just
hold just like like after you catch them, snapped a little.
Next take them home in a sack, stuff them in
the seal skin, get all the air out, and then
bury it under rocks and let it let them ferment
in there. That you know, that's there's that, but you
have the fermenting process, fermenting process there. Even though essentially
you have just birds in a sack of skins under
(16:52):
some rocks. Um, you know, the surface it looks very
similar to hey, I found some dead birds, let's chow down.
But but there, but there is a chemical process going on.
It turns out you do need to convert some of
the foods that you eat to make them palatable, um
and digestible. So yeah, I mean this this is all
part and parcel of these underground food movements that are
(17:14):
taking hold right now. But this was from the article
that that that actually there are scent molecules that have
been identified with decaying meat. And these are the sort
of scent molecules that usually send warning signs who are
brain right, like don't eat this. Um. They've been identified
as cadaverine and putrescing. Of course that's after putrid and putrescence.
(17:36):
So I mean, just that alone makes you think, perhaps,
I you know, if those are that the molecules those
are emitting, and that's what we're calling them, perhaps I
should not eat any high meat. Yeah. Well I don't know.
I certainly have not, to my knowledge, had any high meat. UM.
I may have had a questionable sandwich in the past,
but it was by accident, by accident, but it's not
(17:58):
advertised as high meat. But but certainly I would love
to hear from anybody who has so. Yeah. So now,
if you go in a cafe and you see high meat,
you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not It doesn't mean
it's just borre's head or something, or some sort of
artisan cut or you know, cannabis laden. Well, let's move
away from all these strange murky jars and their fermented secrets.
Uh and uh, and start looking at the insects calling
(18:19):
around this place as well. Let's that's the sound of
the roaches crawling all over the table right now, excellent, Well,
which one's of these guys should we eat? Let's let's
discuss mmm. Okay, so we're talking about into mafagy, right,
the practice of eating insects, including arachnids and maria pods,
which are centipedes or little friends centipedes um. And And
(18:40):
here's you know, a newsplush if you don't know about
this already, If you're eating processed foods, you are eating bugs. Yes,
it's just a fact. The FDA has an acceptable level
of insect fragments and all canned and boxed goods. Oh yes,
I like, for instance, uh, take figs, whether you're talking
about fresh figs or or a lovely fig bass. The
(19:00):
cookie cake item, um, fig newtons, Well they're various, big
based that's one of them. But you can, I mean
you can also just get a baked like fig cake
fig wafer thing at the most bakeries. Oh yeah, wink wink,
nudge nudge. Yeah. Yeah, but there you're gonna those are
likely to contain fig wasps just because they're the fig
(19:21):
itself depends on these tiny little wasps that have to
go in and take care of the pollination. So I
mean you have that, you have just bugs showing up
in in any kind of agricultural crop. Um, it's just
gonna happen. You're gonna eat some bugs. Yeah. And then
just during the process too, uh that sometimes the canning,
in the in the like the eating process, like you're
(19:43):
gonna get yeah, you know, sometimes I just start buzzing
around and I start munching. But no, I mean in
the process themselves. I mean that there's there's a food item,
there are you know, little microscopic bugs all over, plus
the ones that we can see and they're gonna get
in there and chow down as well, right and then
U it is in terms of just the evolution of man.
(20:03):
People have had to eat and if you're looking around
for things to eat, bugs are everywhere. I mean, it's
basically we're it's essentially an insect planet. When you start
breaking down some of the numbers, um and and for
the most part, we don't you know, especially here in
the States, we don't think about about eating the bugs.
But the next time you're on a summer day and
just look around you and and just take in the bugs,
(20:25):
especially on a nice cicada afternoon. Just listen to the
because we we mentioned on that podcast I believe about
the cicadas. These are tasty guys. Um Or, or the
next time you're out doing a little work in the
yard and you're digging in the dirt and you come
across some grubs, just I mean, look at we grubs
are such amazing um like nuggets of nutrition, because because
(20:48):
these are anytime you have like a a larva pupa situation,
this is this is an animal loaded down with the
goods to get it through this stage of its life.
So it's just it's just a very nutritious morsel. Yeah,
and then think back to the past. I mean this
is this was eaten good than neighborhood, right, And mean,
if you had some locusts and honey, you are living
life pretty large. So it makes sense that this would
(21:10):
be a really good source of protein forests, and in fact,
in a lot of Southeast Asian countries, this is not
just a delicacy, but it's something that you would eat
all the time. Right. It's a street food in some places, right, Yeah,
Like various food shows have wound up on the streets
of Bangkok with somebody going to a food cart and
eating insects out of a cart, and they're generally it's
generally done for kind of like a gross out factor,
(21:32):
unless it's like Anthony Bourdain, who tends to really get
on a high horse about traditional quote unquote peasant food. Yeah,
and he has actually eaten seal meat with asking moments before. Yeah,
so watch out for Bourdaine after he said the seal meat.
But when I was in Bangkok several years back, my
wife and I were actually looking around hoping to find
(21:54):
the cart with the but I mean it's it's with
it with the insects, but it's very confusing out there
on the streets looking around at the different cards, and
eventually you just really get kind of an overload decision
fatigue kind of a thing. And yeah, and you can't
sess out the crickets. Yeah, but I wish we'd found
because I really wanted to try them. I'm not opposed
to eating the insects, especially when it's part of some
(22:15):
sort of a culinary tradition. Well, I mean, and again,
it's not that weird. It seems odd to us, but
what we're talking about here is some huge health benefits. Um,
the average insect contains protein exactly ten percent omega, three
five percent minerals, and five percent sugar and two percent fat. Yeah, okay,
so I mean this is this is a great source
(22:37):
of energy right here. Uh. Different insects have different health benefits,
with varying amounts of calories, fat, and carbohydrates. For instants,
for instance, excuse me, one hundred grams of crickets contain
one hundred and twenty one calories and their chock full
of calcium and iron. While our little caterpillar friends, uh
before they become lovely butterflies, we deprive them of that
(22:59):
unfurling of their wings. They have twenty eight crams of
protein per one grams, and they're also a good source
of vitamins B one and three. Yeah, well, the I
mean the butterflies has it's not going to be nutritious,
is that catapulary you want? It's kind of like if
you wanted to hijack a space shuttle for its fuel.
You wouldn't want to get the space shuttle in orbit.
You would want to get it to want it has
(23:20):
all the external tanks on it before it drops plod. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
it's the payload you want. You want to harvest that
payload because the payload is energy that allows this organism
to change from one state to another and as carnivore
well as omnivorce. Rather, um, we are saying, hey, I
want that payload, Let me have that energy, because I
mean we've discussed before pretty much at every level. Um,
(23:42):
to eat on this in this planet and to consume
energy just to steal energy unless you happen to practice photosynthesis,
and even the most devoked vegans and vegetarians I know
do not practice photosynthesis themselves. Yeah, and blame Margine blame Margine,
blame our brain for the energy drain. Actually right talked
about that because it needs a lot of energy. So
(24:04):
that's why we have to go after this um and
that's why our forebearers had to do it. Uh, so
let's talk about this. There are one thousand, four hundred
seventeen species of edible insects and nearly three thousand ethnic
groups that currently practice into mafagi. And most of these
insects are eaten in the larval in the pupil stages um,
though some are are pretty good from you know, all
(24:26):
the way into adulthood. Right, nice little cricket and talking.
The list of edibles is the beetle with three hundred
and forty four varieties, ants, when wasps with three hundred
fourteen varieties, and then butterflies. They do make the list, actually, yeah, yeah,
even though even though they're the I think all flash
no flesh, moths, grasshoppers, and crickets. Well, I can see
(24:50):
months they're a little fatter, and I've seen the cat
eat them, so that's funny. I'll call I actually call
him my cat Renfro because he loves a good spiderway
full of flies stuff. Um, I actually have a quick
recipe here for anybody interested. I found this on a
Nova article about bugs you can eat um, which has
a number of different like from Australia, China, et cetera.
(25:13):
But this one was for grass hopper tacos for Mexico.
And this is all you need. A half pound of grasshoppers,
two cloves of garlic minced, one lemon, little salt to ripe,
avocados mashed, and then six tortillas h corner flour. So
you didn't you just roast the medium sized grapp reshoppers
for ten minutes and degree oven, and you tossed in
(25:35):
the garlic, the lemon, salt to taste, spread the mashed
to avocad on the tortilla, and then sprinkle on the grasshoppers.
You know, there you go. And I was just thinking
too that if you didn't have time to cook, another
advantage you just get on your bike or your motorcycle
and just open your mouth for a couple of months.
Well it's what I think. The cooking is a little
a little different. I was trying to dress it up here,
(25:56):
and then you turn it back into riding around on
a motorcycle eating live bugs. Well I'm just saying that
if you're on the go, I mean, you don't need
fast food, right, I mean the fast food is available
to you just within mirror seconds. That's another thing that
comes to mind, fast food. Like I see people eating
fast food, and I hope I don't come off to
judge you here, but you see some of the things
that people are eating, and you're like, that is so fried,
(26:18):
Like it's just been fried to death. Like they could
have fried a chicken wing and then remove the chicken
wing and just sent you and just served you the shell,
Like it could be anything at the middle of that
fried bundle of good that you just purchased in a
styrofoam container. So why not bugs? Okay? So and and
that's that's a good place to talk about. You know,
why we don't go ahead and cultivate bugs on a
(26:39):
large scale, right, um? You know, besides some of the
cons here of you know, like don't pick any poisonous
bugs or toxic bugs. Right, it's a pretty good idea
to use bugs as as a sort of um many
um or micro farming system for us, right, because you
don't need the land you know that that we need
(27:01):
with livestock. Um you don't need the equipment, like the
huge factory equipment is is really pricey um and and
this is really easy to Also you don't have the
veterinary medicine um and and then all the antibiotics that
go along with it. Yeah, you're and you're also don't
have to worry about naming a cricket before you eat it,
you know, well though I don't know. I don't though.
(27:23):
If you have like a thousand millipedes, it's probably it's uh,
probably not naming them. I have also read data before
talking about the food costs of exploring other worlds with
human space exploration, and those frequently come back around the
idea of using insects for your protein. Yep, yep, just
because it's less space. Like try and raise a cow
on a spaceship versus raising some millipedes. It's going to
(27:46):
favor the millipies, right. Or if we ever established ourselves
on another planet, right, Um, you would probably not be
able to harvest lettuce and cows and so on and
so forth. But hey, just bring some you know, larva
with you and probably have some success. Um. Actually, one
hundred pounds of feed produces ten pounds of beef. The
same amount of feed would produce more than four times
(28:07):
that amount in crickets. And that's just the feet. So
we're not talking again about the land which is getting
pretty scarce for us, and so on and so forth. Um, So,
I don't know, there's a there's an argument there, uh
that perhaps this is going to be a sustainable food
source for us in the future, just as fermented foods. Maybe. Yeah.
I I I tend to imagine that we as a people,
(28:29):
uh more or less talking about like the US, you know,
audience audiences here, that we could I think we could
get past the bug thing, get past the eating bug thing.
I mean, because look at some of the stuff we
already eat. I mean, we're already eating shrimp in many
many of us are eating shrimps, yeah, right, so they're
basically they already look basically the same. And we're eating
(28:50):
higher spiders of the sea right right, And we're eating
higher organisms, were eating cuter organisms, and we're eating plenty
of animals that that look gross. So I mean, I
think we could get over that, that that mental barrier
to eating bugs rather quickly. Well, as we discussed in
the Don't Eat the Panda episode, we have this this
moral distancing that we use through semantic distance distancings. So
(29:12):
we use certain words to kind of give us some
space from what the actual item is, or to change
that definition of what that thing is in our mind
right exact. For example, the grasshopper tacos versus driving around
with your mouth though, because the grasshopper that sounds good
if you would, Well, you got me with the garlic there.
Well yeah, and then advocat you put avocat as in
anything it's gonna be good. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I
(29:33):
mean I will say that I was like, I don't know,
I'm a vegetarian, but perhaps this is something that I
could do, Uh, particularly if I'm in a post apocalyptic situation. Well,
let's get back to the post apocalyptic situation. Then, which
are you going to choose? If you have to choose
between those those jars of pickled wonders or the creepy
crawleys in the corners, which one are you going to
chow down? Well, I will say that, um, the more
(29:55):
nutritious option actually seems to be insects to me. Yeah,
because you although it's just insects is one category, it
seems like you have a huge variety in terms of
some of them nutritive values that it possesses, whereas the
comfort level is definitely with fermented foods. Although I am
not a fan of the pickle, I found this weird
(30:17):
that you you don't like the pickles, like anything pickled
like uh sauer kraut. Huh. It's just you know, But
I would probably get over that, and in fact, in
a post apocalyptic scenario, I would probably go with both. Right, Well, yeah,
I think that your chance of survival, you know, eating
some cockroaches and some some two years old sauer kraut
(30:39):
is probably gonna Yeah, in reality, you would want to
go unless maybe there's a genie here that is saying
that you have to choose one or the other. I
don't know. We didn't introduce that in the original questions.
I'm not going to force it on everyone here and now,
but I would I would tend to even knowing what
we know now, I would I would still probably go
with the pickled content. So would you, Yeah, I don't.
I like plenty of pickled food, so I feel like
there's there's a lot of diversity there in terms of
(31:02):
the things that are pickled. So I mean, I could
I could have some fish. I could have you know,
I could have some cabbage. I can I can get
my h my poisonous shark and spread the sower crout
on it and put it on. Um. Well, I wouldn't
be able to put it on a bun unless somebody's
has pickled buns. You can squeeze out the innerts of
the birds. Yeah, give you act. Yeah, so yeah I would.
(31:26):
I would have to go with the pickles. But but
but that's just me and I love German foods. So
there you go. Uh see, I think it all builts
down into comfort level. UM. We'd love to hear from
you guys out there. What what would you pick if
you had to bugs only or sarakraut essentially only? And
and we would like to know your experiences with eating
(31:47):
odd or very normal pickled items? But your what's your
your approach to them? What's the weirdest pickled thing you've eaten? Um?
Or the weirdest pickled or the most interesting pickled the
food item in your own colinary history? Um? And then
what's your what are your experiences with eating bucks? I?
Like I said, I myself have not have the opportunity
(32:07):
to eat that many insects. Um, I would Well, I
guess I always have the opportunity to eat them. There
right now, I see a little fly over there. Actually, yeah,
well there's that. But in terms of actually an actual
culinary exploration of the insect world, I have not really
pursued it. So I would love to hear from people
who have. And on that note, uh, let's ask the
(32:28):
robot to bring us over some mail. Robot, funny, funny,
he brought you pickled hearing now your mail is all
wet with complaining. Um. Well, first, we had a couple
of people to point out that we recently did a
sword episode, The Way of the Sword. We talked about
the the the history, the manufacturer and culture of of
(32:51):
sword play and sword sword smiths and uh and like
the day that it published, I believe Bob Anderson died
at the age of eighty nine. The Sword Sword Yeah,
oh that's right. He did Star Wars in Prince's Pride, right, yeah, yeah,
he was a pupil of Errol Flynn's. He also did
(33:12):
like Lord of the Ring movies, and and he did Highlanding,
so everyone's favorite. Yeah, well the Highlander. You know, if
you've ever been like a thirteen year old boy. You
gotta love highlanding, even if if most of it doesn't
really hold up, you could probably be a thirteen year
old girl. Yeah, I guess you know Christopher Lambert, he
was pretty pretty dreamy. Or or Clancy Brown if you
(33:35):
like the you know, gruffer type of guy. I guess
you know Fancy Clancy. Yeah, yeah, SpongeBob voice now or
her husband Phil asked to however long SpongeBob but not really. Yeah.
Mr Crab is where the crab guy that owns the
the Krusty Crab good place that SpongeBob works out. Yeah, yeah,
that's Clancy Brown, the Kurgain. Okay, we could probably do
(33:56):
a whole episode on SpongeBob. I'm just discovering SpongeBob. I've
never really watched it before. But there's no you know,
daily show right now. We've been watching other things, and
so we've been watching episodes of SpongeBob and it's amazingly
education and you know, actually, well biologists created that show.
Oh yeah, yeah, I got that about that. Um. Well,
so there we have it. Uh, if you have anything
(34:18):
you would like to share with us, um, things related
to the podcasts that we've discussed in the past, or
the or the more recent ones. Let us know. You
can find us on Facebook as stuff to Blow the Mind,
and we are handle on Twitter is Below the Mind,
and you can always drop us a line at blow
the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
(34:39):
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com