About the day I ate worms and insects

Society & News

Nov 25, 2010

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Some years ago I worked for a company that sells real estate property in the Czech Republic. One time I and some co workers went to an exhibition for 55+ people. It was a general one with all kinds of stands from health to vacation, property, home and garden, food and everything in between.

It was not very busy so in the morning I had time to stroll the exhibition myself. There was one stand that caught my attention because the was a crowd gathering around it so i went to check it out. To my disgust it was all about eating insects and worms; from grasshoppers to the unspeakable. You could eat them alive or dead either cooked, boiled or fried.

Gosh, I thought, I must be very, very hungry before I would consider eating that stuff.

But the day passed and it did get any more buzzy, me and my co workers had in the mean time drank the local Czech alcoholic drink for the visitors of our stand that failed to show up.

I had the chance to stroll the exhibition once more and because of the alcohol I was a bit more brave than usual. Again I encountered the stand with the Insect and worm dishes.

I think you have to try everything in live when opportunity knocks so I decided I wanted to try

it (people In the jungle eat worms and insects all the time and they did not get sick of it or die from it) . So I decided to try something that was already dead, a fried grasshopper of some kind. To my surprise it tasted good so I tasted some other (dead) dishes too.

The ultimate challenge was to eat something that was still alive, worms like in the picture above; I don't know how they are called meal wurms in English. They are often sold in pet shops to feed tropical birds.

So i took a handful and put them in my mouth. Ok, so it crunched a little but so do potato chips! Actually they tasted quite good, they had a taste like nuts.

And than it hit me. It is all between the ears. Your perception is based on the things you know and your are familiar with. I mean cows and pigs that have just been slaughtered do not look very tasteful either. I learned from this experience never to dismiss something on forehand because I am not familiar with it.

Anyway this experience allowed me to pull a nice stunt. I went with some of my friends to a pet shop where the sold tropical birds and worms to feed them like the picture above.

I went to the shopkeeper and asked; "Do you sell worms to feed my tropical birds?" "Sure", he said, and he showed me where to find them. "OK". I said, "but I need to check if they are fresh enough". And again I grabbed a handful of wurms and ate them before his eyes. I will never forget the look on that mans face. LOL.

The hidden message of this story: step out of your comfort zone

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