Eating Bugs Is not My Idea of Excitement

Photo by Rusty Boxcars

Okay, I know what happened in Miami was a tragic event, and I feel sorry for the contestant's family and friends, as well as the deceased contestant; but still, I have to wonder about anyone who would eat insects, alive or otherwise. 

In case you don't know to what event I'm referring, I read an article in Wednesday's The Advocate (my newspaper of choice) by Tamara Lush (I did not make up that name) and Suzette Laboy of the Associated Press about a man who died after eating dozens of live insects in a contest to win a female ivory ball python (a big snake). The insects were roaches, three to four inches long; crickets; and worms. Hmm, I didn't know worms were insects. Are they? The classification of worms aside, however, this guy consumed dozens. How did he eat them? Well, according to Sarah Bernard, an entomology student at the University of Florida, who videoed the event and and was interviewed by Lush and Laboy, "He had a clear strategy. He would push everything into his mouth and try to swallow them with water. He figured out what worked and he did it" (p. 7A, para. 16).

When my brother, sister, and I were growing up in rural Georgia, we did a lot of foolish things, and we sometimes ate things that weren't fit for human consumption, for instance, dirt, persimmons, fried pork rinds, and dog biscuits (Don't ask). We never once, though, considered eating bugs, at least not intentionally. Granted, we occasionally swallowed a bug or two when we were bicycling with our mouths open, but we did not intend to swallow those bugs. And I'm sure that when my brother got older and went through his motorcycle phase, he probably swallowed a few bugs. After all, I always heard, "You can tell a happy motorcyclist by the bugs between his teeth." Still, again, let me emphasize, no one in my family ever intentionally put a bug in his or her mouth, chewed on it, and then swallowed it.

Of course, bug eating for fun and profit isn't a new phenomenon. As Lush and Laboy relate, people ate Madagascar cockroaches, which as I learned from research are really, really huge and hiss at you, a few years back for a chance to win passes to Six Flags in Illinois; and last year, "people ate live roaches at the Exploreum Science Center in Mobile, Alabama" (para. 8). Why did folks eat them in Mobile? I don't know because the article didn't say. Maybe they just like to eat bugs in Mobile.

Anyway, what I've been wondering ever since I read the article in Wednesday's Advocate is why on earth people do such outrageous and totally disgusting things for fifteen minutes of fame? It's one thing to stuff your face with hot dogs like contestants do at Coney Island every year, but bugs? Well, to answer that question, Lush and Laboy say that "experts point to the rise in reality TV shows and movies such as Fear Factor as egging people on and breaking down the ick factor" (para. 6). Moreover, they cite Lou Manza, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College, who contends that "folks who participate in extreme events like bug eating 'are looking for things to make life interesting'" (Lush & Laboy, para. 8). 

I have news for you. My life may not be overly exciting, and I may not experience an adventure every waking minute, or even every year for that matter, but there is no way on God's green earth that I am going to stuff my mouth with insects, alive or dead. I mean, come on, contrary to what my ex-husband thought, and probably still thinks, my mama didn't raise no idiot.  

Source: Lush, T. & Laboy, S. Death sparks daredevil questions. Baton Rouge, LA: The Advocate. Wednesday, October 10, 2012. p. 7A