ADAM RUINS LITTLE BUGS
Plot
Don’t let Adam’s facts bug you as he uncovers the benefits of spiders, serves up knowledge on why we should be eating more bugs as a protein source, and illustrates the benefits of little bugs on your gut health.
- Anti-Spider Stigma
- Stigma: a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.
“the stigma of having gone to prison will always be with me”
- Fact: 7 people a year, in the US, die from spider bites
- Perception: Spider bites might be skin issues
- Spiders eat pests that eat our food
- Why eat bugs?
- Lobsters and crayfish are arthropods, aka, bugs.
- Bug parts in canned food? FDA stance – if people don’t notice, no problem, as they won’t cause harm
- 100lbs of chocolate = 1lb of bugs
- Red dye is often made from scale insects
- Lac Bugs (jelly beans, fondant)
- Eating up to 2lbs a year without even realizing it
- Eating bugs would be more environmentally efficient, and healthy for protein, fiber, vitamins, and helps diseases not jump species from animals to humans
- Mexican Caviar = ant larva
Butterfly metamorphosis: form a chrysalis which exists under their skin and hardens into a shell at a given time
Inside the chrysalis, uses enzymes to digest itself into a digestive soup
Open too early and you’ll find parts of the butterfly
- Self digestion
More bug than human?
- Body is covered with little bugs, outside and in, and they’re keeping us alive.
- Arachnids called demodex – tiny spiders in hair follicles on face.
- Gut is home to trillions of healthy microbes, as well as those that cause disease.
- 57% of the cells in the body are made of little bugs – Microbiome
Learning how to maintain and enhance gut bacteria that are helpful
Poop samples…
Research: The microbiome may play a role in adulthood obesity, allergies, autoimmune disorders, and mood.
The most deadly creature on earth: the mosquito
They carry a load of diseases like Yellow Fever, Dengue Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, Malaria (247 million infections, 1 million deaths annually, according to BBC News, 15 Jun 2016
- 3,500 species identified, only a couple 100 eat human blood
- Autocide – genetically modified to cause its own demise
- One study in Australia released 20 million sterile mosquitoes and were able to eliminate 80% of disease producing mosquito populations in North Queensland
- (agriculture) Control of a pest through propagation of sterile males.
- One study in Australia released 20 million sterile mosquitoes and were able to eliminate 80% of disease producing mosquito populations in North Queensland