Edible Insects and Plants

[Surviving Wild]

Sometimes when you are in the wilderness you might forget, use up or loose your food you may have with you. If you are hungry but do not have the right tools or knowledge to successfully hunt game from pigeons and squirrels even to deer, then you might have to resort to eating insects! However unappetising they may look, its food! And that is why it is good to have some general knowledge of the types of insects that are edible.

Woodlice - Most people know what these look like, they look like tiny versions of Armadillo's and can be found in rotting dead wood, in cracks and crevasses ect. They can be eaten raw but do not have any flavour at all, but when you cook them, just a quick fry over a fire will do. You can hear them pop as they cook and go a grey colour, when they are cooked they taste like prawns! Unbelievable but true, give them a go!

Worms and Slugs - Earthworms, maggots and larva ect are generally fine to eat raw, you may want to squeeze their insides out first just to be sure that you get as many parasites out as possible without cooking them, you do not have to remove the guts but it is generally safer and you will not be missing out on any mouth watering flavours if you remove them! Slugs on the other hand contain some very harmful parasites and if eaten should first have their guts removed and leave just the meat. After you remove the guts you should boil them in water just to be safe. Then they are fine.

 

[Lumber Jack]

Sometimes when you are in the wilderness you might forget, use up or loose your food you may have with you. If you are hungry but do not have the right tools or knowledge to successfully hunt game from pigeons and squirrels even to deer, then you might have to resort to eating insects! However unappetising they may look, its food! And that is why it is good to have some general knowledge of the types of insects that are edible.

Woodlice - Most people know what these look like, they look like tiny versions of Armadillo's and can be found in rotting dead wood, in cracks and crevasses ect. They can be eaten raw but do not have any flavour at all, but when you cook them, just a quick fry over a fire will do. You can hear them pop as they cook and go a grey colour, when they are cooked they taste like prawns! Unbelievable but true, give them a go!

Worms and Slugs - Earthworms, maggots and larva ect are generally fine to eat raw, you may want to squeeze their insides out first just to be sure that you get as many parasites out as possible without cooking them, you do not have to remove the guts but it is generally safer and you will not be missing out on any mouth watering flavours if you remove them! Slugs on the other hand contain some very harmful parasites and if eaten should first have their guts removed and leave just the meat. After you remove the guts you should boil them in water just to be safe. Then they are fine.

I see it's your first post, so welcome to the forum!

Very informative reading. That said, The key to Survival is preparation. A pack of sausages, some eggs and some rashers of bacon go down well first thing on a morning. Worms and woodlice? I've tried both before and whilst they certainly are good survival food, I'd rather have some bangers and eggs, sunny side up.

Remember, Prior Preparation Prevents Pee Poor Performance.

LJ, Off to the kitchen to eat.

 

[Harvestman]

Woodlice also make a decent indigestion cure, if eaten raw, although in my opinion, unlike the poster above, they taste awful (they have glands that secrete an oil that makes them taste bad to predators). For preference, choose the ones that roll up into balls, as they have better armour and so have less effective oil glands.

Slugs are alright pickled like cockles.

Big brown house spiders (those leggy monstrosities) are supposed to be quite tasty when roasted. I know some tropical spiders are traditionally roasted over a fire by stuffing them into bamboo canes and holding the cane over the fire. In late summer big garden spiders are probably edible too.

Grasshoppers are ok to eat too, as are green or brown caterpillars, but beware anything with bright colours (usually equals poisonous), or hairy (irritant spines).

Most other stuff in the UK isn't really big enough to be worth the trouble, or available in sufficient quantities, unless you are seashore foraging. It is curious though that people will happily go and collect winkles and prawns, but put them in a field away from the shore and they won't eat anything unless it is a plant.

 

[Surviving Wild]

Thankyou. Yes I always take some noodles and a tin of spam when im on my trails I would have bacon and eggs over woodlice anyday ahha

 

[Toddy]

Slugs and snails are better purged. Just keep them somewhere moist but with something 'clean' underneath. They'll excrete the remains of whatever they've been eating and be clean inside for eating. If you're in the notion you can feed them deliberately and depending on what you give them it can flavour the flesh.

Though, having seen how effectively they cleaned up the mess of sicked up cat food on one of the side paths, I really don't think I'd ever be that hungry.

cheers,
Toddy

P.S. welcome to the forum

 

[SMARTY]

Dont forget you will need water to digest the food. No water dont eat. Welcome Surviving Wild.

 

[spandit]

Woodlice also make a decent indigestion cure, if eaten raw

Because you vomit and there's nothing left to digest?

 

[Harvestman]

Because you vomit and there's nothing left to digest?

Nope, because their armour is made almost entirely of calcium carbonate, an alkali which neutralises the excess acid in your stomach. It really does work.

Woodlice are almost limestone on legs!

 

[DFCA]

Hope theres some more to come on this thread, I've always been intersted in, though little tempted to try, the invertibrate food supply in the UK.

I know the Romans used to purge snails with milk, cleaned them well and imparted a better flavour alledgedly!

I ate worms once, though never slugs or snails nor puppy dogs tails - dogs ears however is another story!

atb
Dave

 

[mountainm]

Nope, because their armour is made almost entirely of calcium carbonate, an alkali which neutralises the excess acid in your stomach. It really does work.

Woodlice are almost limestone on legs!

Alternatively you could eat chalk, or limestone - which is limestone without legs.

 

[Melonfish]

What about grasshoppers and crickets? take a while to collect and eat but they're generally considered fine.
quick toast over the fire.
I believe most if not all kinds of scorpions are edible too, naturally remove the sting/venom but the rest should be perfectly edible cook if you wish but there apparently is no need.

tbh since i've been cycling i'm finding i'm getting a lot more protein in my diet from all the bugs i swallow, hasn't done me any harm to date.

 

[Frogo]

For those that like to eat insects have a look at this site.

http://bugsandbeasts.com/whynoteatinsects/

 

[lannyman8]

i have just done my 5 items or less and tried woodlice and worms, the worms are not great and muddy, the woodlice where fine, i quite enjoyed them, a little crunchey but nice.....

other things i plan to try in the future, locust are fine raw by the way, i know because we have bearded dragons, we feed them locust somtimes and i could not help my self when the wife said "go on dare you". A dare is a dare after all....

regards.

chris.

 

[Lumber Jack]

What about grasshoppers and crickets? take a while to collect and eat but they're generally considered fine.
quick toast over the fire.
I believe most if not all kinds of scorpions are edible too, naturally remove the sting/venom but the rest should be perfectly edible cook if you wish but there apparently is no need.

tbh since i've been cycling i'm finding i'm getting a lot more protein in my diet from all the bugs i swallow, hasn't done me any harm to date.

Crickets are delicious. They have a very nutty taste when they've been roasted in the fire. Aphids are another treat. This time of year you can almost guarantee to find some on the wild salad leaves you pick. Looking at it objectively though. No insects give you the required nutrients to survive. If you weigh up the risk to reward, you'll have used more energy collecting them than you'll ever be able to replace by eating them. An average male(10/11stone) with very light exercise, like walking and other daily activities burns 2,000 calories per day. When you start to clime up the weight ladder and get to my height and weight (6ft2 & 15 stone) you are burning a hell of a lot. Add stress, high energy output activity and very minimal calorific intake, woodlice won't sustain you at all. Even with the addition of worms and crickets.

I'd much rather chow down on their bigger cousin, the shrimp.

LJ

 

[horsevad]

Sometimes when you are in the wilderness you might forget, use up or loose your food you may have with you. If you are hungry but do not have the right tools or knowledge to successfully hunt game from pigeons and squirrels even to deer, then you might have to resort to eating insects! However unappetising they may look, its food! And that is why it is good to have some general knowledge of the types of insects that are edible.

Woodlice - Most people know what these look like, they look like tiny versions of Armadillo's and can be found in rotting dead wood, in cracks and crevasses ect. They can be eaten raw but do not have any flavour at all, but when you cook them, just a quick fry over a fire will do. You can hear them pop as they cook and go a grey colour, when they are cooked they taste like prawns! Unbelievable but true, give them a go!

Worms and Slugs - Earthworms, maggots and larva ect are generally fine to eat raw, you may want to squeeze their insides out first just to be sure that you get as many parasites out as possible without cooking them, you do not have to remove the guts but it is generally safer and you will not be missing out on any mouth watering flavours if you remove them! Slugs on the other hand contain some very harmful parasites and if eaten should first have their guts removed and leave just the meat. After you remove the guts you should boil them in water just to be safe. Then they are fine.

Sorry to sound boring and overly cautions, but from a biology-teachers viewpoint the idea of using snails and worms for human consumption should be approached with some caution...

That a invertebrate creature not in itself is poisonous does not automatically mean that they are fine for human consumption.

A lot of these creatures have a whole different metabolistic system than humans, which means that the can tolerate toxins and chemicals humans cannot.

The snail could have eaten parts of a amanita phalloides - or other poisonous plant/fungus native to your area, before beeing harvested.

The poison from amanita phalloides consists of two chemicals, namely amatoxins and phallotoxins.

The amatoxins are quite powerfull and is not easily affected by cooking heat, nor is the toxin readily metabolized by snails and worms.

This means that even a gutted and cooked snail or worm has the potential to cause serious illness and even death, depending on the plants it has been foraging from.

Snails and worms should therefore always be starved (or fed controlled diets) for several days before human consumption.

Further problems related to consumption of snails and worms consists of several kinds of parasites and bacterias, of which some are able to produce cysts which can withstand cooking heat.

Far better alternative is to learn a number of edible plants. In a temperate environment like ours it is quite easy to gather enough plants to sustain a human being. The plants keep the main part of their energy reserve in the roots, therefore the important plants to learn to recognize in an foraging context is the plants with high carbohydrate content - preferably in the form of polysaccharides known as starch.

A lot of these plants are usable the whole year, with some actually having a larger nutritionally value in the winter.

//Kim Horsevad

 

[mountainm]

Hi Kim

<snip>

Far better alternative is to learn a number of edible plants. In a temperate environment like ours it is quite easy to gather enough plants to sustain a human being. The plants keep the main part of their energy reserve in the roots, therefore the important plants to learn to recognize in an foraging context is the plants with high carbohydrate content - preferably in the form of polysaccharides known as starch.

A lot of these plants are usable the whole year, with some actually having a larger nutritionally value in the winter.

//Kim Horsevad

</snip>

I find this idea really interesting - where would carbs, fats and protein come from in the different seasons?

 

[Lumber Jack]

Sorry to sound boring and overly cautions, but from a biology-teachers viewpoint the idea of using snails and worms for human consumption should be approached with some caution...

That a invertebrate creature not in itself is poisonous does not automatically mean that they are fine for human consumption.

A lot of these creatures have a whole different metabolistic system than humans, which means that the can tolerate toxins and chemicals humans cannot.

The snail could have eaten parts of a amanita phalloides - or other poisonous plant/fungus native to your area, before beeing harvested.

The poison from amanita phalloides consists of two chemicals, namely amatoxins and phallotoxins.

The amatoxins are quite powerfull and is not easily affected by cooking heat, nor is the toxin readily metabolized by snails and worms.

This means that even a gutted and cooked snail or worm has the potential to cause serious illness and even death, depending on the plants it has been foraging from.

Snails and worms should therefore always be starved (or fed controlled diets) for several days before human consumption.

Further problems related to consumption of snails and worms consists of several kinds of parasites and bacterias, of which some are able to produce cysts which can withstand cooking heat.

Far better alternative is to learn a number of edible plants. In a temperate environment like ours it is quite easy to gather enough plants to sustain a human being. The plants keep the main part of their energy reserve in the roots, therefore the important plants to learn to recognize in an foraging context is the plants with high carbohydrate content - preferably in the form of polysaccharides known as starch.

A lot of these plants are usable the whole year, with some actually having a larger nutritionally value in the winter.

//Kim Horsevad

I can't possibly argue with a biology teach, I'll have to bow down to your superior knowledge on this one. But I'll put my opinion and limited knowledge forward...

Woodlice, earth worms, maggot and snails are fine to eat and have been eaten by indigenous people for thousands of years. Plants are fine. But if you need substantial protein you need to eat some form of meat, fish or poultry(I know a specialised plant diet can give you all the protein you need). Cooking thoroughly will kill most bacteria harboured inside a carrier. Unless you bring extreme thermophiles into the equation, which can resist heat well past boiling point. The only problem being, they need heat to live. Whilst some peat bogs in the UK have been known to harbour them, they aren't considered a huge danger to us. After all, Their chosen abode is volcanic hot springs and within the earths crust.

Standard sterilization devices achieve 121 degrees Celsius. This is known to kill all bacteria which can cause problems to us human beings. (obviously again, there are exceptions). If in doubt. Cook under pressure, Bacteria that we as humans may naturally encounter, from parasites living in worms, maggots and snails et al, cannot live under pressures greater than 15psi.

LJ

 

[rik_uk3]

If your in the UK and loose your food just go and buy some more, that simple.

Remember that the food value of bugs and a lot of shell fish is pretty much zero so why bother; you would often use more energy gathering the food than the food would return.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/boneandivory/a/shellmidden.htm

Many 'Middens' it would seem were in fact more a social event, a bit like a modern day BBQ.

 

[armie]

Snails and worms should therefore always be starved (or fed controlled diets) for several days before human consumption.

//Kim Horsevad

And so the hunter-gatherer becomes a farmer...

Very interesting thread this, thanks guys!

 

[Lumber Jack]

If your in the UK and loose your food just go and buy some more, that simple.

Remember that the food value of bugs and a lot of shell fish is pretty much zero so why bother; you would often use more energy gathering the food than the food would return.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/boneandivory/a/shellmidden.htm

Many 'Middens' it would seem were in fact more a social event, a bit like a modern day BBQ.

Sorry Richard, You're wrong. Shellfish has HUGE nutritional value. Take shrimps for instance. Per 3 ounces they contain 18 - 20 grams of protein. When you take into account that tuna, which we consider hugely nutritious and is a staple for a lot of people, contains around 22-24 grams per 3 ounces, Shellfish are in fact hugely nutritious. So I don't really know where you got the idea of them having nearly zero food value from. Clams, which were a key part of middens, have nearly the same protein content as tuna. Another plus? Shellfish are all rich in iron.

Considering proteins can't be stored by the human body, they are passed through the body if we eat too much. If we eat to little, our body doesn't have reserves to tap into. Which is why so many survival experts talk about protein being like the holy grail of bodily nutrition. They are very important.

The very cool thing about proteins, is the fact that they can be converted by our bodies, to energy and fats, (EFA's-essential fatty acids.) Shellfish aren't so "uncool" now are they?

To add, I'd consider beef a staple dietary food, wouldn't you? Protein content per 3 ounces is 21-23 grams. Compare that to nearly all shellfish that you say have "nearly zero food value". Impressive, huh? It shows our ancestors didn't just eat them as part of a social event. I know a lot of shellfish can't be eaten all year round. And know they did in fact secure other proteins from deer and wild boar ect. If you consider the energy used in tracking, stalking, hitting the animal with a bow, then tracking it until the animal eventually dies. Then bringing the animal back to the living area. You can assume that a calorie deficit will have been reached in the body. indigenous populations hugged the coastlines. They knew that spending an hour down in the rock pools could yield enough food to survive, from very little energy output, I might add, compared to the rigours of hunting and killing a larger animal.

Hope this has helped.

LJ