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Bug heads, rat hairs -- bon appétit | page 1, 2
What do these insects that we are eating every day taste like? FDA entomologist Steve Anghold told me that if you have enough aphids ground up in a batch of hops, it might conceivably make the beer taste sweeter, because aphids secrete a sweet fluid. In fact, he went on to say, ants "herd aphids like cattle and milk 'em," feeding the sweet fluid to their ant infants. "That's why aphids are called ant cows," he said. It was one of those unsettling journalistic moments where you wonder whether your source has been having an especially dull afternoon and is having you on for the fun of it. I ask Ludwig if a couple dozen beetle larvae would change the taste of a food. She says the insects she typically deals with wouldn't impart much flavor, but that "their metabolic byproducts probably don't taste very good." I ask her what exactly she means by "metabolic byproducts." She says, "Their waste materials." She isn't talking about coffee grounds and recyclables. Not only do you have to put up with thrips in your broccoli, you have to put up with thrip excreta.
Mary Roach Mary Roach's column appears in Salon Health & Body every other Friday.
If it makes you feel any better, none of this filth is bad for you. With the exception of the dermested beetle larvae, which have hook-shaped hairs that become embedded in your intestines and prompt all manner of gastroenterological sturm und drang, the insects encompassed in the FDA's Food Defect Action Levels are objectionable either on a purely aesthetic level, or as an indicator of unsanitary warehouse conditions. On the contrary, meals made from "microlivestock," as edible insects are called by those who enjoy eating them, are good for you. According to the Ohio State fact sheet, caterpillars have as much protein as beef, a fraction of the fat, 10 times the iron and way more riboflavin and thiamine. Plus the ranches take up much less room and can be staffed by cowboy ants hired away from low-paying aphid-herding jobs. Ludwig's area of expertise is filth hair identification. On her desk between the copy of "World of Moths" and an 8-by-10 color photograph of Colorado potato beetles mating, is a diploma in hair and fiber microscopy. The more common filth hairs -- rats, dogs, cats, mice -- she can identify under the microscope by sight. For less common specimens she consults highly esoteric reference books and/or a cabinet of "authentics": sample animal hairs culled from zoos. She opens a drawer and shows me a glass slide with a mongoose hair fixed to it, and another from a ring-tailed cat. While Ludwig is off attending to a sample of chili paste, I pull open another drawer. This one contains human hairs of various ethnicities. "Japanese arm hair," says one label. There are Chinese hairs, Caucasian hairs, Filipino hairs, knuckle hairs, eyelashes, eyebrow hairs. Without saying a word, Ludwig reaches in front of me and slides the drawer shut, leading me to wonder whether somewhere in that collection is an authentic human pubic hair. Ludwig and her colleagues also make use of excreta "authentics," glass vials of teeny tiny sample turds. I notice one labeled "caterpillar excreta." Each unit in the vial is as small as a cake crumb. One more reason to ranch caterpillars and not cows.
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