@NMSU
Students learn the importance, yummy possibilities of bugs
The line of students first approached the stage of the Gerald Thomas Auditorium with caution, curiously looking at the bug meal laid out before them - chocolate covered grasshoppers and crickets, fried mealworms - salted and spicy-Cajun-flavored, cans of beetle larvae, a candy sucker with a wasp in it, another hard-candy treat with a scorpion in it - looking like one of those paper weights you buy in a Mexican curio market. And in a small sandwich bag - the contents move
"Try one of the live mealworms," Dave Thompson encouraged the students from the top of the stage, pacing back and forth with a mischievous smile on his face. Thompson is a professor of entomology, plant pathology and weed science in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.
One brave lad did not hesitate, dropping a wiggly worm on his tongue.
"E still moving," he said, forgetting his manners and trying to speak with a mouthful of worm. A small grimace and down the hatch slid the doomed, not-yet-mutated crawly.
"It tastes like popcorn," said another student, as she chewed on a Cajun-flavored mealworm. She continued chewing as she answered questions from her inquisitor, and the inquisitor continued with a, "I can't believe you did that," look on his face.
"Try some," she urged her inquisitor.
"Ah, no thanks, I had a big lunch."
Meanwhile the photographer clicked away, hoping to capture a student just as the unsavory meal dropped into a student's mouth.
"They're too small," said the photographer. "I was hoping for the big worms."
"Yea, I couldn't find any of those," said the insect culinary expert who's been having students eat bugs for years. Thompson is willing to teach the EPWS 325G "Insects, Humans and the Environment" to anyone at NMSU brave enough to learn all about bugs and their nutritional value.
"Why would people want to eat insects?" Thompson asked at the beginning of the class and pointed to the Powerpoint presentation showing reasons like food shortages and as a protein source. He explained to the students that throughout history people have been eating bugs as a source of food. The Powerpoint presentation showed the high-protein content of bugs and in some species, higher than beef, without the fat or caloric count.
As the discourse continued, the students determined not to try the tasty treats learned that every day they eat bugs.
"We all eat insects," Thompson said. Insects are in your food every day, or at least parts of them. And the FDA approves a certain amount of insect content per food, he said.
So peanut-butter lovers enjoy, for it is one of the foods with the highest content of bugs. Bon appétit!
Written by Mario A. Montes.