Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Bug Parts and Red Dye

Just why, exactly, are RED things so appealing? Would we feel the same way about something that is bright green? Or ebony black? Or deep purple? How about bright yellow? If they remove the red dye, the taste remains "red" but the color does not. Why does the red make it more appealing?

And why, exactly do we hate to eat bugs anyway? We eat cow muscle, chicken parts, and soda pop that POPS because we add an ingredient that we breathe OUT on a regular basis. We eat fish eggs and grind all kinds of ingredients together to create fatty delicacies like corn chips, jolly ranchers, and fake-butter popcorn. We actually eat PORK RINDS which, in essence, is the skin of a pig, deep fried - but we turn our collective noses up at BUG PARTS?

It doesn't make sense.

Think about it: Morgan Spurlock got horribly SICK after eating McDonald's food for a month. Ground up cow muscle with iceberg lettuce, wilted tomatoes and some gosh-awful sauce - everyday! Plus, deep-fried remnants of what were once potatoes and gallons of coca cola, which is loaded with refined sugar. But bug parts? We turn out noses up at bug parts?

See the commercial with the overweight guy going around the world sampling ingredients for Kashii - the fencepost cereal? He turns his nose up at grasshoppers on a stick, but digs his hand into some kind of grain that looks like mashed up wheat stalks. The grasshoppers are obviously cooked - probably slow-roasted over some open fire somewhere in the third world. They look crunchy don't they? But this guy, who looks like he could USE a steady diet of health food, won't touch them. The lady offering them? She looks healthier than HE does.

Something is topsy-turvy here.

1 comment:

Philosohoe said...

So does this mean that you'll be serving roast grasshopper and fly soup at your next dinner party? That would be a sight to behold. (Not necessarily an appetizing sight, but a sight nonetheless.)