Managing Bugs

While this post isn't about my container garden, it is marginally about vegetables. But if you don't like bugs (or if you like them so much that one's demise makes you all teary eyed), stop reading now.

Last night, Marianne and I joined a couple of friends for dinner at a local casino buffet that shall remain nameless. I will say that this wasn't one of the ultra cheap buffets, but rather one of those that we only patronize if we have a two for one coupon. We had quite the experience.

Following the usual wait in line, we got our table, fixed our plates, and sat down to eat. At first, everything seemed fine in the world, as we enjoyed decent buffet fare and good table conversation. Then, Marianne began gazing intently at something she had excavated from her half-gone food. Of course by the time I recognized her Oh Sh*t look and heard her exclaim that there was a rather large bug in her salad, mine had long since disappeared with only the slightest scrutiny having been applied to it.

After we all looked at, studied, and confirmed the offending matter to be an insect in nature, Marianne called over the server who then passed the message (and the dead bug) along to the restaurant's manager. You would, and we did, expect the manager to come over and apologize for serving my wife dead crawly things with her dinner. Instead, we waited in vain for quite a while as nothing happened.

Finally, Marianne happened to bump into the aloof manager while searching for some other, non-infested, nourishment. After questioning him about the bug, his only response was that "people eat an average of 7 or 8 bugs a year." Marianne then asserted that she was vegetarian and preferred not to eat any bugs. On hearing this claim he surmised that, "in that case, you probably eat more bugs than the average person." Ultimately we did get a coupon for a free buffet out of the deal, but only for her. When she requested another coupon so that the two of us might return as a couple, the manager explained his policy of "one bug, one meal!"

Anyhow, all of this aroused my curiosity as to how many bugs the average person unknowingly consumes each year. After a quick Internet search, I came up with widely varying claims. A low estimate provided by a message board poster claimed that people eat approximately 50 insects per year with their food. A fitness blogger cited a recent issue of Woman's Health Magazine as support for claiming the much higher amount of two pounds of bugs per year. I suspect that if all restaurant managers react in the same lackadaisical manner of the one we encountered last night, the higher estimate is probably closer to the mark.