Rebecca Mildren's Blog - Posts Tagged "insect"
What do crickets eat?
I was always more of a tomboy than a mani-pedi girl. With all the frogs, snakes, weevils, and pillbugs that I harassed my mom with, I suppose it's only fair that I am now the mother of two boys. So if you're the squeamish sort or on the fence about adding more children to the planet, read no further.
OK, you've been warned. For days now, as we've been out preparing the garden for planting, my oldest has been begging me to help him catch a cricket. They hide under the rocks and stuff and can only be located by their chirp, which of course usually stops as soon as they hear my rowdy kiddos coming, so they have remained elusive. Until yesterday. Just before dinner. I guess you could say I had an ulterior motive for catching this particular insect. It doesn't live in the garden. It lives under our bedroom window. Actually, now, it lives in a box on the porch. But as to how it got there… ~shudder~
So we heard it chirping and actually located it, in the bark mulch under aforementioned window. It was unnerving the way it didn't hop like a grasshopper, but skittered through the bark like an evil cockroach, but I did it. I caught it. The boys were thrilled. Eventually, the critter escaped back into the bark, and we had to look for it again. Only we couldn't find it this time. Oh, well. I was busy pulling the fine prickles out of my hands left by the bark, and there was a strange pokey sensation in my arm, too, and I figured some stickers had got up there, as well. How wrong I was. Yes, you know what was hiding up my sleeve. But I was oblivious. For several minutes. And we're not talking little cricket here. More like Jiminy Cricket-sized.
Anyway, I was then forced to find a box for Jiminy the terrorist and Google what crickets eat. Basically, they are the cannibalistic goats of the insect world. They eat just about everything, and when they can't get that, they eat each other. Lovely. Apparently, there is a whole controversy as to whether crickets are one of the four insects considered kosher. My take on that is this: Grasshoppers eat grass. There's no way that an omnivorous cricket is kosher. Maybe if you fed it organic hay or something. Just maybe. But if I'm not even going to eat a grasshopper… There are elite companies out there now making cricket granola bars and high-protein snacks, while some people in the UN think crickets are the answer to world hunger. On that one, I'm with Professor Turpin of Purdue University: The sheer volume of crickets one needs to produce is the problematic part. I'll just let that one sink in for a moment.
And if you're wondering, I said that no, the cricket can't come and live inside the house with us. (!!!) But the boys ate their dinners outside with their new pet (no, there was no washing of hands involved) and shared their food with it. Yum.
OK, you've been warned. For days now, as we've been out preparing the garden for planting, my oldest has been begging me to help him catch a cricket. They hide under the rocks and stuff and can only be located by their chirp, which of course usually stops as soon as they hear my rowdy kiddos coming, so they have remained elusive. Until yesterday. Just before dinner. I guess you could say I had an ulterior motive for catching this particular insect. It doesn't live in the garden. It lives under our bedroom window. Actually, now, it lives in a box on the porch. But as to how it got there… ~shudder~
So we heard it chirping and actually located it, in the bark mulch under aforementioned window. It was unnerving the way it didn't hop like a grasshopper, but skittered through the bark like an evil cockroach, but I did it. I caught it. The boys were thrilled. Eventually, the critter escaped back into the bark, and we had to look for it again. Only we couldn't find it this time. Oh, well. I was busy pulling the fine prickles out of my hands left by the bark, and there was a strange pokey sensation in my arm, too, and I figured some stickers had got up there, as well. How wrong I was. Yes, you know what was hiding up my sleeve. But I was oblivious. For several minutes. And we're not talking little cricket here. More like Jiminy Cricket-sized.
Anyway, I was then forced to find a box for Jiminy the terrorist and Google what crickets eat. Basically, they are the cannibalistic goats of the insect world. They eat just about everything, and when they can't get that, they eat each other. Lovely. Apparently, there is a whole controversy as to whether crickets are one of the four insects considered kosher. My take on that is this: Grasshoppers eat grass. There's no way that an omnivorous cricket is kosher. Maybe if you fed it organic hay or something. Just maybe. But if I'm not even going to eat a grasshopper… There are elite companies out there now making cricket granola bars and high-protein snacks, while some people in the UN think crickets are the answer to world hunger. On that one, I'm with Professor Turpin of Purdue University: The sheer volume of crickets one needs to produce is the problematic part. I'll just let that one sink in for a moment.
And if you're wondering, I said that no, the cricket can't come and live inside the house with us. (!!!) But the boys ate their dinners outside with their new pet (no, there was no washing of hands involved) and shared their food with it. Yum.
