Eating grasshoppers

I tried my first grasshoppers and katydids this morning; thanks to The Food Insects Newsletter for giving me the courage and permission. I was raised like most others that even the thought of eating bugs was a total 'grossout.' It's just a general thing parents teach little kids, like don't eat wild berries and don't play with snakes and spiders.

Now that I'm doing organic gardening and homesteading and trying to be very practical and efficient, I wondered if there was any predator for the numerous grasshoppers in my garden. Seeing none and having heard they were eaten in other countries, I enthusiastically subscribed to your newsletter, which said in effect it is OK to eat 'bugs.' You have now created an efficient 'grasshopper predator!' These were rather small twoinch grasshoppers and not much to them except abdomen, but I was quite pleased to find it didn't taste strong or exotic or strange of texture. Just rather creamy, mildly sweet, definitely protein with a bit of oil and a slightly chewy outer layer.

The Editor of the Food Insect Newsletter adds a rider to her letter:

Annie also had some questions, one of which was whether insects can be eaten raw thus preventing nutrient loss which might occur during processing. In a postscript dated one day later, the second day of her new life as a 'grasshopper predator', she partially answered her own question; she had collected a nematodeinfested grasshopper. This was an unsettling experience to say the least, and about the only thing I could tell her was that an army survival manual that I have seen recommends cooking grasshoppers precisely for the reason that some may contain nematodes. This is a question for which I hope one of our readers who is knowledgeable about grasshopper parasites will provide some detailed information. I presume they are harmless to humans, but, like finding a 'worm' in your apple, just the thought of finding a nematode in your grasshopper isn't necessarily so great. What is the geographic distribution of the nematodes, what can infection rates amount to locally and can one recognise an infested grasshopper without breaking it open, what is the seasonality, is there species specificity, etc? The need for information is urgent. Otherwise, the grasshopper predator population in Missouri will undergo a reduction. Or, as Annie put it, 'What an icky start to my consumption of the bug population!'