Oddly terrifying

[merh]

Carl posted this.
There is stupid.
Then there is ugly ignorance

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11253145/Grinning-Montana-woman-kills-skins-HUSKY-thinking-baby-wolf.html

*** CONTAINS PICS OF SKINNED DOG ***

Grinning Montana woman kills and skins a HUSKY thinking it's a wolf - as she proudly poses with the poached pup before outraged friends berate her for slaughtering a pet dog
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
The woman posted the troubling photos showing off the husky she killed Friday, claiming the animal was a wolf
Almost instantly, an army of angry dog-lovers pointed out that the slain creature was not a wolf pup, but in fact a much smaller Siberian husky
A wave of backlash then ensued, eventually spurring a police investigation
Both Rose and her partner have since defended their actions saying the kill was perfectly legal and an act of self defense - as well as a mistake

[abbey1227]

Sept 27, 2022 12:15:01 GMT merh said:

Carl posted this.
There is stupid.
Then there is ugly ignorance

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11253145/Grinning-Montana-woman-kills-skins-HUSKY-thinking-baby-wolf.html

*** CONTAINS PICS OF SKINNED DOG ***

Grinning Montana woman kills and skins a HUSKY thinking it's a wolf - as she proudly poses with the poached pup before outraged friends berate her for slaughtering a pet dog
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
The woman posted the troubling photos showing off the husky she killed Friday, claiming the animal was a wolf
Almost instantly, an army of angry dog-lovers pointed out that the slain creature was not a wolf pup, but in fact a much smaller Siberian husky
A wave of backlash then ensued, eventually spurring a police investigation
Both Rose and her partner have since defended their actions saying the kill was perfectly legal and an act of self defense - as well as a mistake

There has also been the occasional hunter claiming to not know the difference between a coyote and a wolf.    IF you can't tell the difference, put the gun away

[merh]

[merh]

The Giant Cheetle of Cheadle, Alberta!!!

Someone paid for this..
But not Americans

[abbey1227]

Oct 5, 2022 21:28:13 GMT merh said:

The Giant Cheetle of Cheadle, Alberta!!!

Someone paid for this..
But not Americans

you sure? Not Trump?  

[merh]

[abbey1227]

Oct 13, 2022 1:12:41 GMT merh said:

bleeeach!

[merh]

INSIDER
I recently removed 23 contact lenses from a patient's eye. In my 20 years as a doctor, I've never seen anything like it.
Lauren Crosby Medlicott
Thu, October 13, 2022 at 7:54 AM

I recently removed 23 contact lenses from a patient's eye. In my 20 years as a doctor, I've never seen anything like it.

Dr. Katerina Kurteeva is an ophthalmologist in Newport Beach, California.

A patient came in complaining of pain, but Kurteeva couldn't see anything in the initial exam

This is Kurteeva's story, as told to Lauren Crosby Medlicott.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dr. Katerina Kurteeva. It has been edited for length and clarity.

It had been a manic Monday at the clinic with eye emergencies that had come up over the weekend, in addition to our routine appointments. Toward the end of the day, a patient in her mid-70s who wore daily contact lenses came in saying she felt she had something in her eye that she couldn't get out.

Even though we ask seniors to come in once a year for checkups, this woman had skipped appointments and hadn't been to the office in two years. Although her vision was blurry, it was the pain that bothered her most.

My mind jumped to the possibilities of what it could be: a piece of broken contact lens, a scratch on the cornea, an infection, an eyelash, or debris from makeup. I'd only know for sure once I did the examination.

I checked for scratches or foreign objects
To start, I used an anesthetic and a yellow stain to identify any scratches or foreign bodies. I couldn't see anything on the cornea from the initial examination, so I proceeded to manually pull on the lower and upper lids to see if there was anything in the upper or lower fornix. These are the deep corners of the eye, like little pockets of the eyelid, where things occasionally get stuck.


I didn't see much — just a little bit of mucous, which could be a natural response to irritation. I was puzzled.

To continue my investigation, I used an instrument called an eyelid speculum that would keep both the upper and lower lid open at the same time for a longer period of time, so I could freely use my hands to find out what was going on.

When I asked her to look down, I could see the edges of a couple of contacts stuck to each other. Pulling them out, I felt like I could still see more and asked my assistant to get my phone to record the removal.

Asking the patient to look down again, I could see a huge, dark-purple blob of contact lenses stuck to her eye. It almost looked like a second pupil. I gently started using a Q-tip to peel the lenses apart one by one, like you would deal a deck of cards. They were coming out in a chain, drooping down her lid. There were a lot of contact lenses — I thought this could be my Guinness Book of World Record moment.


In nearly 20 years of practice, I had never seen anything like it.

Dr. Katerina Kurteeva's patient
The patient's eye with most of the contact lenses removed.Courtesy of Dr. Katerina Kurteeva
She felt better almost immediately
The patient couldn't believe it either and asked if I was sure about the number I was counting.

After we had removed the biggest blob, we retrieved a few more from the corners, carefully flushed her eye out with distilled, sterile water, removed some of the mucous, and sent her home with anti-inflammatory drops. She said she felt much better already.

Laying out the contacts on a tissue, I separated each one with fine-tip forceps and counted 23 contact lenses. Some of them were yellow and some light blue, because while the natural color of a contact lens is light blue, the stain I put in her eyes to examine had colored some of the lenses yellow.

I posted the video of the examination, and it went viral straight away. Optometrists from South America, Mexico, and Europe were using the video to educate people about making sure they take their daily contact lenses out of their eyes every single night. These are light, flimsy lenses and should not be used for more than 24 hours.

This can be really dangerous for the patient
This patient was very fortunate — she could have lost her vision, scratched her cornea, or gotten an infection. I begged her not to wear contact lenses again and give her eyes a break, but she's gone straight back to wearing them. I saw her a month after the examination and she was doing really well, feeling much more comfortable and seeing clearly.

Although I can't be certain of how she managed to forget to remove all those lenses, it could because she had been wearing contact lenses for 30 years. When a person wears contact lenses over a long period of time, it can cause desensitization of the corneal nerve endings. She wouldn't have felt something like 23 contact lenses as sharply. It also could have been her age. Older people's eyelid fornix, the least sensitive space, is much deeper, and the contact lenses just sat there for a while not bothering her.


I feel really lucky to have captured this on video to remind people to remove their contact lenses every single night. This was a happy ending, but it could have gone sour really quickly.

I worked with a gal that had a contact in her eye & had to have surgery. Having worn contacts myself, I couldn't understand how anyone could not know the contact was still there.

[abbey1227]

Oct 15, 2022 3:59:26 GMT merh said:

INSIDER
I recently removed 23 contact lenses from a patient's eye. In my 20 years as a doctor, I've never seen anything like it.
Lauren Crosby Medlicott

I worked with a gal that had a contact in her eye & had to have surgery. Having worn contacts myself, I couldn't understand how anyone could not know the contact was still there.

I refuse to even entertain the idea of getting them.

FYI: That's not even the record....... 27

[merh]

I am getting a bit wary of the Midwest...

Michigan Tech researchers are turning plastic waste into food for the U.S. military
Updated: Oct. 24, 2022, 2:33 p.m.|Published: Oct. 24, 2022, 9:26 a.m.

By Matthew Miller | [e-mail]
It’s edible, the stuff being produced in Stephen Techtmann’s lab. Or it’s meant to be.

It doesn’t smell bad, he said, a bit like a yeast extract or the Australian food spread Vegemite.

But he hasn’t tasted it. First, he wants to know it’s safe, free from anything that might be toxic. It is, after all, made from plastic.

Techtmann, a microbiologist at Michigan Technological University, and collaborators from Michigan Tech and the University of Illinois, are in the midst of a project that seems half-miraculous: turning plastic waste into edible protein.

“It does kind of seem sci fi to be able to say that we’re going to convert plastic into something that you can eat,” Techtmann said.

The secret ingredient is microbes that can feed on plastic’s component parts, including a substance that resembles synthetic crude oil.

“We would never want to feed plastic to people,” Techtmann said, “but we can use microorganisms to produce biomass or proteins using plastic as an input. And so what we’re trying to do with this is to take plastic, break it down, feed it to microorganisms and then recover those microbial cells as a food product.”

The organization interested in the technology is the U.S military. Most of the funding, some $7.2 million, comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, whose past endeavors are at least partly responsible for the existence of the Internet, GPS technology, self-driving cars and, on a less victorious note, the chemical defoliant Agent Orange.

Microbes are Techtmann’s specialty. Five years ago, he received a DARPA Young Faculty Award for devising a way to track the past movements of ships based on the microbes found in their bilge water (different ports around the world have different microbial signatures.)

But it was his work on oil spills, begun in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that laid the groundwork for the plastics project.

“What we were doing there was trying to be proactive and really check to see if there are bacteria in different places around the ocean that we can use to help clean up potential oil spills,” he said.

After he arrived at Michigan Tech in 2015, he started doing similar work in the Great Lakes “because of the issues surrounding Line 5 and some of the concerns about a potential spill there.”

But he began wonder if there was a more proactive approach, a way of preventing environmental damage rather than responding to it.

Then, in the fall of 2019, DARPA put out a solicitation for project proposals.

“Like much of the world, (the Department of Defense) has a significant plastic waste footprint,” said Seth Cohen, a program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, “and it’s one that we’d like to both mitigate and make useful, potentially.”

On average, each deployed member of the U.S. armed forces produces more than pound of plastic waste per day, he said, largely water bottles and the packaging for meals.

Portable systems that can turn plastic waste into useful projects like lubricants and food isn’t just good for soldiers in combat, he said, but it could be a way “to avoid conflict by providing food security and stability to maybe undernourished populations.”

The first step, Techtmann said, was “looking at samples from relatively mundane places like mud from streams or compost from a nearby farm to see if there were any of these bacteria in these natural places that could do this.”

Microbes mostly don’t feed on plastic, but some do feed on the components of plastic. So part of the work of making plastics into something edible is making them into something microbes can eat.

David Shonnard’s focus is on the plastics used in the bags that contain the ’s meals ready to eat. With a heating process called pyrolysis, the Michigan Tech chemical engineer can reduce polypropylene into a wax, a gas and an amber liquid that’s something like synthetic crude oil.

“Natural microbes have been adapted over the years, over the millennia really, to metabolize crude oil,” he said, but it was still a “eureka moment” to discover that they would also eat the synthetic stuff.

“To me, that’s just incredible,” he said, “something that the microbes have never seen before ever. And they’re growing on it.”

Rebecca Ong is also working on breaking down plastics, though she’s using a chemical process not entirely dissimilar from what microbes use to break down plastics in nature. Her process is faster.

The microbes will be both the consumers and the consumed. After they eat the deconstructed plastic, grow and multiply, they’ll become the food. The idea is that they’ll be dried into a powder that could be mixed into smoothies, added to animal feed, maybe someday even 3D printed into something that looks like a steak.

They’ve gotten the process to work in the lab, said Ong, a chemical engineering professor at Michigan Tech, and to work pretty quickly, too. But the team still isn’t getting the yields they want.

“What we’re trying to do in the next few months is get that yield up,” she said, and to make sure that all the components of the system fit within a three cubic-meter space, small enough to be deployed on the back of a truck in combat zones or disaster relief operations.

What makes the project compelling, Techtmann said, is that it that it has the potential to address two big challenges, plastic waste and food insecurity, all at once.

“I think what we’re doing is really cool, and we’re potentially going to contribute to helping to solve some of these problems,” he said, “but it’s going to take a lot of other people and a lot of energy and a lot of expertise.”

[abbey1227]

Oct 25, 2022 4:52:54 GMT merh said:

I am getting a bit wary of the Midwest...

Michigan Tech researchers are turning plastic waste into food for the U.S. military
Updated: Oct. 24, 2022, 2:33 p.m.|Published: Oct. 24, 2022, 9:26 a.m.

By Matthew Miller | [e-mail]
It’s edible, the stuff being produced in Stephen Techtmann’s lab. Or it’s meant to be.

It doesn’t smell bad, he said, a bit like a yeast extract or the Australian food spread Vegemite.

But he hasn’t tasted it. First, he wants to know it’s safe, free from anything that might be toxic. It is, after all, made from plastic.

Techtmann, a microbiologist at Michigan Technological University, and collaborators from Michigan Tech and the University of Illinois, are in the midst of a project that seems half-miraculous: turning plastic waste into edible protein.

“It does kind of seem sci fi to be able to say that we’re going to convert plastic into something that you can eat,” Techtmann said.

The secret ingredient is microbes that can feed on plastic’s component parts, including a substance that resembles synthetic crude oil.

“We would never want to feed plastic to people,” Techtmann said, “but we can use microorganisms to produce biomass or proteins using plastic as an input. And so what we’re trying to do with this is to take plastic, break it down, feed it to microorganisms and then recover those microbial cells as a food product.”

The organization interested in the technology is the U.S military. Most of the funding, some $7.2 million, comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, whose past endeavors are at least partly responsible for the existence of the Internet, GPS technology, self-driving cars and, on a less victorious note, the chemical defoliant Agent Orange.

Microbes are Techtmann’s specialty. Five years ago, he received a DARPA Young Faculty Award for devising a way to track the past movements of ships based on the microbes found in their bilge water (different ports around the world have different microbial signatures.)

But it was his work on oil spills, begun in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that laid the groundwork for the plastics project.

“What we were doing there was trying to be proactive and really check to see if there are bacteria in different places around the ocean that we can use to help clean up potential oil spills,” he said.

After he arrived at Michigan Tech in 2015, he started doing similar work in the Great Lakes “because of the issues surrounding Line 5 and some of the concerns about a potential spill there.”

But he began wonder if there was a more proactive approach, a way of preventing environmental damage rather than responding to it.

Then, in the fall of 2019, DARPA put out a solicitation for project proposals.

“Like much of the world, (the Department of Defense) has a significant plastic waste footprint,” said Seth Cohen, a program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, “and it’s one that we’d like to both mitigate and make useful, potentially.”

On average, each deployed member of the U.S. armed forces produces more than pound of plastic waste per day, he said, largely water bottles and the packaging for meals.

Portable systems that can turn plastic waste into useful projects like lubricants and food isn’t just good for soldiers in combat, he said, but it could be a way “to avoid conflict by providing food security and stability to maybe undernourished populations.”

The first step, Techtmann said, was “looking at samples from relatively mundane places like mud from streams or compost from a nearby farm to see if there were any of these bacteria in these natural places that could do this.”

Microbes mostly don’t feed on plastic, but some do feed on the components of plastic. So part of the work of making plastics into something edible is making them into something microbes can eat.

David Shonnard’s focus is on the plastics used in the bags that contain the ’s meals ready to eat. With a heating process called pyrolysis, the Michigan Tech chemical engineer can reduce polypropylene into a wax, a gas and an amber liquid that’s something like synthetic crude oil.

“Natural microbes have been adapted over the years, over the millennia really, to metabolize crude oil,” he said, but it was still a “eureka moment” to discover that they would also eat the synthetic stuff.

“To me, that’s just incredible,” he said, “something that the microbes have never seen before ever. And they’re growing on it.”

Rebecca Ong is also working on breaking down plastics, though she’s using a chemical process not entirely dissimilar from what microbes use to break down plastics in nature. Her process is faster.

The microbes will be both the consumers and the consumed. After they eat the deconstructed plastic, grow and multiply, they’ll become the food. The idea is that they’ll be dried into a powder that could be mixed into smoothies, added to animal feed, maybe someday even 3D printed into something that looks like a steak.

They’ve gotten the process to work in the lab, said Ong, a chemical engineering professor at Michigan Tech, and to work pretty quickly, too. But the team still isn’t getting the yields they want.

“What we’re trying to do in the next few months is get that yield up,” she said, and to make sure that all the components of the system fit within a three cubic-meter space, small enough to be deployed on the back of a truck in combat zones or disaster relief operations.

What makes the project compelling, Techtmann said, is that it that it has the potential to address two big challenges, plastic waste and food insecurity, all at once.

“I think what we’re doing is really cool, and we’re potentially going to contribute to helping to solve some of these problems,” he said, “but it’s going to take a lot of other people and a lot of energy and a lot of expertise.”

wha? It's very Green sounding. Getting rid of waste and feeding people something other than meat.

You'd prefer bigger bugs on the menu?

[merh]

Oct 25, 2022 12:35:23 GMT abbey1227 said:

Oct 25, 2022 4:52:54 GMT merh said:

I am getting a bit wary of the Midwest...

wha? It's very Green sounding. Getting rid of waste and feeding people something other than meat.

You'd prefer bigger bugs on the menu?

Dude, if I don't know there's a bug in my food (like they allow a certain amount in our food anyway, you know) at least it's a natural thing. Our ancestors probably ate them.

Plastic?
No

[abbey1227]

Oct 25, 2022 14:48:49 GMT merh said:

Dude, if I don't know there's a bug in my food (like they allow a certain amount in our food anyway, you know) at least it's a natural thing. Our ancestors probably ate them.

Plastic?
No

Which ones? The primates? or even earlier evolution-wise? 

It's not plastic, but the waste product from bugs eating plastic. Win-Win?

By the way, they say we're all ingesting a certain amount of plastics these days anyway.

[merh]

Oct 25, 2022 20:40:49 GMT abbey1227 said:

Oct 25, 2022 14:48:49 GMT merh said:

Dude, if I don't know there's a bug in my food (like they allow a certain amount in our food anyway, you know) at least it's a natural thing. Our ancestors probably ate them.

Plastic?
No

Which ones? The primates? or even earlier evolution-wise? 

It's not plastic, but the waste product from bugs eating plastic. Win-Win?

By the way, they say we're all ingesting a certain amount of plastics these days anyway.

Yeah, and it's sad we are by product eating plastic. 

My mama said we're all going to eat a pound of dirt by the time we die.

She didn't say bug poop.

It's a sad surrender.
That we have fucked up the planet so to survive we have to adapt to eating our pollution.

Dude, there are native peoples who eat bugs. 
Protein is protein.

[abbey1227]

Oct 26, 2022 14:21:14 GMT merh said:

Oct 25, 2022 20:40:49 GMT abbey1227 said:

Which ones? The primates? or even earlier evolution-wise? 

It's not plastic, but the waste product from bugs eating plastic. Win-Win?

By the way, they say we're all ingesting a certain amount of plastics these days anyway.

Yeah, and it's sad we are by product eating plastic. 

My mama said we're all going to eat a pound of dirt by the time we die.

She didn't say bug poop.

It's a sad surrender.
That we have fucked up the planet so to survive we have to adapt to eating our pollution.

Dude, there are native peoples who eat bugs. 
Protein is protein.

For all this BS talk of green and clean, I'm not seeing any less plastic use. There's more, in fact.

Yeah, protein is protein........but a person should still have the choice to decide for themselves. I ain't giving up my cheeseburgers.

[merh]

Oct 26, 2022 22:15:12 GMT abbey1227 said:

Oct 26, 2022 14:21:14 GMT merh said:

Yeah, and it's sad we are by product eating plastic. 

My mama said we're all going to eat a pound of dirt by the time we die.

She didn't say bug poop.

It's a sad surrender.
That we have fucked up the planet so to survive we have to adapt to eating our pollution.

Dude, there are native peoples who eat bugs. 
Protein is protein.

For all this BS talk of green and clean, I'm not seeing any less plastic use. There's more, in fact.

Yeah, protein is protein........but a person should still have the choice to decide for themselves. I ain't giving up my cheeseburgers.

Countries That Eat Bugs

By Miriam B. Weiner
Aug. 11, 2014

Slimy, scary, "the size of a Buick" — we use a lot of terms to describe bugs, but "yummy" isn't usually one of them. We associate insect ingestion with reality television shows like Fear Factor, which week-after-week portrays contestants wolfing down everything from live cockroaches to plump caterpillars. But before you add "eating bugs" to the list of things you'll never ever do, consider this: Insects are actually far more nutritious than other common forms of protein, even fish. For example, 100 grams of top sirloin beef contains about 29 grams of protein in addition to a whopping 21 grams of fat, while 100 grams of grasshopper contains 20 grams of protein and a measly six grams of fat. Big difference! Many scientists believe that entomophagy -- insect eating -- will not only benefit our health, but also the planet. In an interview with The Guardian, Belgian entomologist Arnold van Huis says that farming insects emits 10 times less greenhouse gas than farming livestock.

So why are we so disgusted by the thought of munching on bugs? Pennsylvania State University professor Manfred Kroger tells National Geographic that our eating habits are conditioned by our culture. We see insects as the destroyers of crops and ruin-ers of picnics rather than a food source, while many cultures — primarily in Africa, Asia and South America — rely on creepy-crawlies as their main source of protein. As naturalist, author and "Bug Chef Extraordinaire" David George Gordon tells the Telegraph, "Insects are the most valuable, underused and delicious animals in the world." Here are a few countries that have already hopped on the bug bandwagon

Citizens of Thailand are no strangers to entomophagy. In fact, fried bugs are commonly served with beer (like peanuts at a bar). Once more prevalent in the Northern provinces like Isan, snacking on these vermin is now a regular occurrence in major cities like Bangkok, where vendors sell crispy insects from carts at outdoor markets. One of the country's most popular snacks is Jing Leed, a deep-fried cricket seasoned with Golden Mountain sauce (similar to soy sauce) and pepper. Other favorites include grasshopper, woodworm, bamboo worm and Maeng Da, or 3.5 inch-long water beetles. While most insects sold by Thai street vendors are prepared the same way, each variety is said to have its own distinct flavor.

While we normally consider termites to be a pesky (and costly) household plague, Ghanaians see them as a delicious and nutritious snack. However, in Ghana, eating bugs is much more than a lifestyle choice -- it's a means of survival. Other types of food are often in short supply during the country's spring months, when many Ghanaians are busy planting crops. Luckily, the season's heavy rains force winged termites to flee their underground homes. The termites are high in proteins, fats and oils, all of which are needed for a healthy, well-balanced diet. The insects can be fried, roasted and even ground into flour for baking purposes.

You probably won't find any creepy-crawlies at your local cantina, but insects have been a staple in Mexican cuisine for centuries. And these days, you'll find that they suit just about every taste. French-fried caterpillars offer a satisfying crunch, while ant eggs are served with so much butter that even Julia Child would approve. Chocolate-covered locusts and candy-covered worms make getting your daily dose of protein oh-so sweet. If the thought of consuming insects still makes you queasy, take some time to drink it in down in Oaxaca (a state in southern Mexico), where a potent alcohol called mezcal is served with a "worm" — the larval form of the moth Hypopta agavis — submerged in the glass.

To us, bugs are nature's practical joke. But in China, they're considered delicacies. The Chinese snack on a wide variety of insects, from water bugs boiled and then soaked vinegar to live scorpions doused in baijiu, a robust liquor. While Chinese citizens eat all sorts of insects, the country's finer restaurants tend to serve its delicacies in the larval state. Chinese gourmands enjoy roasted bee larvae and fried silkworm moth larvae, which are both rich in nutrients like copper, iron, riboflavin, thiamin and zinc. And when temperatures begin to drop, the Chinese keep warm with a steaming bowl of ant soup.

The Chinese aren't the only people who like ants; in Brazil, içás, or queen ants, are a favorite snack. Although ants were once eaten only by poorer citizens, this tradition is now celebrated. Every October and November, these massive winged ants emerge from underground to the delight of the residents of Silveiras, a small town in southwest Brazil. Here, they collect the ants, remove their wings and fry 'em up (or dip them in chocolate). There's even an arts and crafts center devoted to the içá-eating tradition, where you'll find everything from dishes to aprons featuring images of the beloved bug. Are you wondering why içás are so popular? Silveiras' townspeople claim that they taste just like mint.

Although the trend hasn't really caught on in the more urban areas, many of Australia's indigenous cultures eat insects for protein. Back in the day, preparing creepy-crawly cuisine was a painstaking process: The Aborigines cooked moths in the sand, stirring in hot ashes to help remove the bugs' wings and the legs. Today, Oz's native societies still thrive on insects like honey-pot ants — which use their bodies as a portable pantry — and witchetty grubs, or large, wood-eating moth larvae. Roasted witchetty grub has a crispy skin with a yellowy filling that's said to taste a little like almonds.

Bugs have been a staple of Japan's cuisine for centuries due to their abundance. In fact, during rough agricultural and economic times, insects were the main means of survival for many rural populations. Today, bugs are becoming a more common sight on Japanese menus: Restaurants all over the country serve up hearty portions of hachi-no-ko (boiled wasp larvae), sangi (fried silk moth pupae) and zaza-mushi (aquatic insect larvae). The Japanese also enjoy munching on fully grown insects such as semi (fried cicada) and inago (fried grasshopper). And though noshing on insects is still a little taboo here — particularly in the cities — many Japanese people are beginning to broaden their culinary horizons.

The Netherlands is one of the few European nations beginning to embrace entomophagy. While Dutch insect breeders face a barrier of Western criticism, gourmands like Johan Van Dongen — head of the meat department for the food distributor Sligro, believes that once people learn to sink their teeth in, they'll never go back. The New York Times wrote an article about Van Dongen's efforts to convert his fellow countrymen: He set up tasting stands offering passers-by samples of whole insects as well as chocolate infused with ground mealworms. "When they see the bugs, they’ve already eaten them in the chocolate," Van Dongen tells the Times. "Some people scream, ‘Oh, my God!’ But if you do it once, then you do it twice."

Eating bugs is now part of the challenge of participating in reality TV shows like Survivor and Fear Factor. But believe it or not, bugs are being consumed on our own home turf when the cameras are off. If you own red lipstick or have ever snacked on red candy, chances are that you've ingested cochineal, an insect native to South America that is used to produce red dye. Bugs are also becoming prevalent in sweets. Many candy shops like Hotlix in Pismo Beach, California, are famous for selling chocolate-covered ants and cricket lollipops. It comes as no surprise that children welcome the concept of entomophagy with open arms, and with such sweet treats at hand, it might be time for us adults to follow suit

[abbey1227]

Oct 27, 2022 0:11:39 GMT merh said:

 But believe it or not, bugs are being consumed on our own home turf when the cameras are off. If you own red lipstick or have ever snacked on red candy, chances are that you've ingested cochineal, an insect native to South America that is used to produce red dye.

I got no problem with a dye being made from processed materials. And we all ingest a certain amount of spiders and whatnot while we sleep 

But I still ain't giving up my cheeseburgers or chick-Fil-a

[merh]

Oct 27, 2022 11:41:35 GMT abbey1227 said:

Oct 27, 2022 0:11:39 GMT merh said:

 But believe it or not, bugs are being consumed on our own home turf when the cameras are off. If you own red lipstick or have ever snacked on red candy, chances are that you've ingested cochineal, an insect native to South America that is used to produce red dye.

I got no problem with a dye being made from processed materials. And we all ingest a certain amount of spiders and whatnot while we sleep 

But I still ain't giving up my cheeseburgers or chick-Fil-a

My kid liked a certain juice box. Chiquita? The fruit punch was the favorite & it had the beetle shell in it.

[abbey1227]

Oct 27, 2022 20:22:22 GMT merh said:

Oct 27, 2022 11:41:35 GMT abbey1227 said:

I got no problem with a dye being made from processed materials. And we all ingest a certain amount of spiders and whatnot while we sleep 

But I still ain't giving up my cheeseburgers or chick-Fil-a

My kid liked a certain juice box. Chiquita? The fruit punch was the favorite & it had the beetle shell in it.

you like Tequila, by chance?

[merh]

Oct 28, 2022 1:34:51 GMT abbey1227 said:

Oct 27, 2022 20:22:22 GMT merh said:

My kid liked a certain juice box. Chiquita? The fruit punch was the favorite & it had the beetle shell in it.

you like Tequila, by chance?

Don't drink alcohol, remember?
But yeah. My husband had to buy some when we went to TJ.

But it is not tequila 

What is a Tequila Worm? Should you eat it? And why is it there?

All your questions on that little worm inside your tequila bottle answered.

The myth, the legend, the confusion of that floating worm inside our tequila bottles. Some of us have never even seen one other than in movies. Is it even a real thing? Does it still exist? I’m here to tell you that yes it does exist, and yes it is still a thing.

I recall my days working in somewhat of a dive bar with a bottle of Monte Alban on the back bar, a brand of mezcal with the infamous worm floating at the bottom of the bottle and also happens to come with a small bottle filled with extra mezcal pickled worms. For those of you who just can’t get enough.

The fun we had sneaking worms into shots of mezcal for one and other. Living on diets of mezcal and worms. Those were the days.

During that time I had a lot of recurring questions on the infamous worm. Is it alive? Why is it there? Does it taste of anything? Etc. And so I’ve answered those questions as well as a few more popular concerns below.

Spoiler: You should probably avoid mezcal with a worm inside it, not because of the worm itself but because it's normally a good indication of brands which have more of a focus on marketing then flavour. It's probably the biggest marketing ploy for agave spirits since the old tequila slammer.


Are Tequila Worms alive?
That little worm inside your bottle of tequila is not alive. In fact, if it wasn’t for drowning in booze then that little worm would turn into a beautiful butterfly (or moth rather), as it’s not a worm at all. It’s the larvae of a moth. But more on that later.

Tequila worm moth full grown.
Are tequila worms edible?
They are indeed. Feel free to gulp down that worm to your hearts content. I’m warning you now though, it will not be very nice.. However, Mexican chefs often incorporate gusano de maguey the worm into dishes, and the fried version makes for a great drinking snack alongside tequila.

Will eating a tequila worm make me sick?
That is a difficult question to answer. Maybe? They are pretty damn small and if you swallow it whole washing it down with mezcal then you shouldn’t even feel it in your mouth. However if you decide to chomp on it as if you’re in a bush tucker trial then you are probably going to taste it.

As for throwing up and physically being sick, that depends on how squeamish you are. They don’t necessarily taste disgusting, it's more the thought of what it is that gets people. A baby moth.

Mezcal worm in shot
Does the worm add to the flavour?
Contrary to popular belief the worm does not add anything to the flavour.

Are tequila worms hallucinogenic?
I’m not quite sure where this myth that the tequila worm is hallucinogenic comes from but rest assured that it is not true. You can eat as many tequila worms as you like, you will ever hallucinate.

If I had to warrant a guess as to where this came from, I’d say that due to the worm being in the bottom of the mezcal bottle, it meant you had to drink the whole bottle of mezcal before you got to it. Meaning by the time you had the worm you were just about drunk enough to think you were hallucinating.

After you have just polished off a bottle of mezcal and had a strange bug that everyone around you was telling you was going to make you hallucinate. You probably are most likely going to fool yourself into thinking it's true.

This is similar to absinthe. Absinthe got a reputation for being hallucinogenic even though that’s not exactly the case as I talk about in this article here: Absinthe guide part 3 - Hallucinating and how to serve. If absinthe interests you then check out part 1 of of that guide and part 2 first. Hallucinating is covered in part 3. I also covered it in episode 1 of Nightcap, the podcast about drink stories.

Does the tequila worm get you drunk?
No, although it's soaked and pickled in mezcal, there isn’t enough booze on the worm itself to get you drunk. The shots you take to build yourself up to eating it however, might just do the job.

Why does Tequila have a worm in it?
Origins to why it’s there in the first place are pretty murky but there are two stories that make sense. The first of which is simply a marketing ploy. Which to be fair, works wonders. When staring unknowingly at a shelf of mezcal it can be difficult to choose one. When there's a drowned worm in the bottom of the bottle that stands out, promotes curiosity and hence makes you want to buy it.

The second comes from a suggested old strategy for telling different bottles apart. On agave plantations, Jimadors who harvest the agave would often end up with different bottles of interchangeable light colour liquid, both tequila and mezcal. In order to tell them apart they would pluck the dead worm from the agave plant and place it in the mezcal bottles. Somewhat of a glorified name tag if you will.

If I were to place a bet on which story is true, I’d go for the fact it’s nothing more than a marketing gimmick. It’s great to think that these worms add flavour, or that eating the worm is an ancient Mexican tradition or it was a way to prove that the ABV was high enough to pickle the poor critter or even that they will make you hallucinate! But the truth of the matter is that the mezcal worms only started appearing in commercial bottles sometime around the 1940s or ‘50s. And was most likely just a way to make people buy more Mezcal.

What Tequila has a worm in it?
None. That’s right, no tequila has a worm in it. That's another common misconception. The Mexican spirit that has a worm in that bottom is actually as you’ve probably guessed by now Mezcal. Tequila and mezcal are quite similar as covered in my article on the difference between them Tequila and Mezcal, so the misunderstanding is acceptable.

Both tequila and mezcal are made by distilling the agave plant, however while mezcal can be made from a blend of one of 250 types of the cactus-like succulents. In order to be classified as tequila, a bottle must be at least 51% blue agave (agave tequilana)-the higher the percentage of blue agave, the finer the bottle.

Which means tequila is a type of mezcal, but mezcal is not tequila, and only mezcal has worms.

Read my full guide on Mezcal here to see how its made and more about the spirit with the worm.

Then check out my guide on Tequila to really understand how they differ.

If you really want to fully understand these spirits, you can also check out my article on agave spirits that are NOT Tequila as well as my complete guide on agave.

Buy Mezcal with the worm in
I don’t usually recommend Mezcal’s with worms in as it is all abit gimmicky, there are much better mezcals out there without the worm, Like Momento Verde, not to mention Ilegal Mezcal Anejo and Bozal Ensamble. All three of those are the Mezcals I love to drink and will always recommend. More I love to recommend are at the end of my Mezcal article.

However, if you really want to try it out as it is an experience to drink and eat the worm. That check out the below Mezcals.

Monte alban mezcal product photo.
Monte Alban
amazon.co.uk - £26.99
Monte Alban is a classic, it use to and sometimes still does come with a small bottle of extra worms. So if its the worms you’re after, this is the one.

Learn more about this Mezcal here.
Recuerdo mezcal
El Recuerdo Mezcal
amazon.co.uk - £36.87
Another bottle with the worm in is this one, which you can get on amazon prime and be munching on a Gusano de Maguey by tomorrow afternoon…

Learn more about this Mezcal.
What I would suggest is getting one of the above just for the worm alone, stick with my other recommendations for Mezcal tasting. If you really want the best of both, I’d recommend picking up some Gusano salt, which is salt made and flavoured in Oaxacan (the birthplace of Mezcal) and flavoured with actual Mezcal worms.

Use it to rim your next Mezcal Margarita for an interesting take on the classic.

Gusano salt image (salt made with mezcal worms)
Agave Worm Salt
amazon.co.uk - £16.99

Perfect for margarita rimming and tasting the worm in the least gross way.

Learn more about this agave worm salt.
So it’s not a worm, and it’s not in Tequila?
That is correct! There is no such thing as a tequila worm, no worms are in spirits and especially not in tequila. However mezcal larva doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Then what the hell is that bug in the bottom of my bottle?
The worm itself is actually a moth larvae called a gusano de maguey—since it feeds off of the maguey plant. (Maguey is agave, the plant which tequila and Mezcal is made from)

There are actually two types of larva that can be used. One is the larva of the beetle Scyphophorus acupunctatus, which is what the red larva is and the other is larva of the moth Comadia redtenbacheri from the Cossidae family of moths, which is what the white larva and most popular used is. Both of which are picture above.

Both these critters live their life on the agave plant until being plucked off for bottling.

Now that you’re fully up to date with that mezcal worm why not check out more agave spirit, tequila and mezcal articles here.