Are Termites on the Menu? Sometimes it’s Better to Forget
I read an article today about swallowing insects or eating them, depending on your point of view. We’ve all heard of chocolate covered ants and grasshoppers that are considered a delicacy. There are countries where eating insects is a normal part of the everyday diet. Who hasn’t read about using insects for your own survival if you get stuck in the jungle?
Okay so those are really extreme ideas and circumstances, I know. Then there’s the fact that we’ve all heard about swallowing insects in our sleep, or people who accidentally swallow them because of the wind in their face, on a motorcycle for instance.
These are things we know and try to forget; things we’ve heard and let slip away; things we really don’t like to think about. They are often brought to mind when we are forced to remember, like when someone dies after a bug eating contest that he “won.”
The blog went on to talk about one of those things that I conveniently like to forget. The FDA has a “maximum volume” of insects or insect parts that’s allowable in processed food. I knew this only because of a girl who went to be checked for allergies. She hadn’t changed her diet or soap and went to the doctor for an unexplained rash. After a series of scratch tests they decided that there was an ingredient in chocolate that she was allergic to. She’d never had an allergic reaction to chocolate before and so she was tested for each individual ingredient. The “ingredient” that she was allergic to turned out to be cockroaches.
This is significant to me because the man who won the bug eating contest died a few hours after eating cockroaches. While the jury is out on what exactly he died from, I thought about the girl. She had never exhibited a reaction to chocolate and hasn’t since; the consensus was that it was based on the amount of cockroach parts that made it into that batch of chocolate. She decided her love of chocolate outweighed the danger.
Today’s blog post was about the 80% of the world’s population that eats insects, including termites, which is when it really gets disgusting for me. They just don’t appeal to me as dinner, much less permanent houseguests. I appreciate their industry and their system of society such as it is. I respect them as a necessary part of the global food chain and the ecology of various unsettled regions of the earth. Dinner? No termites are definitely not on my menu, my job is making sure our homes aren’t on their menu.
Keep the termites where they belong and make sure your house isn’t on the menu. Get your home termite inspection in Gilbert and then follow through with your personalized protection plan.
Scottsdale AZ –
Termite Control Arizona
6501 East Greenway Parkway #103
Scottsdale AZ
(480) 582-1085
