Bug Sushi

Only in Japan..

Warning: this post is not for squeamish. 

Source: Japan Times

'Tanoshii Konchu Ryori' is a bug cuisine cookbook published by Shoichi Uchiyama, a Japan's leading insect eating evangelist. But be prepared before opening the 256-page book, some of the 64 color photos of bug recipes may leave you feeling a little queasy.

The meals in the pictures range from huge cockroaches soaked in pink vinegar soup, half-raw fat hornet larvae, huge moth pupae simmered with sugar, and a pizza covered with giant water bugs, spiders, caterpillars and adult hornets. 

Uchiyama, who lives in Tokyo and holds a food sanitation license, has his own reason to justify his bug eating crusade. Academic studies have shown insect are rich in nutrition and many are even more nutritionally balance than meat of fish, Uchiyama pointed out. In addition, they grow much faster and require less feed than animals and fish, ane leftover vegetables are enough to farm many kinds of bugs. They grow in small spaces and don't compete with human beings over food, Uchiyama said, "I think a food shortage will emerge as a global problem in the near future. Insects will play a big role in solving the problem."

Uchiyama's argument may sound bizzare, but U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is in complete agreement.

You can visit Uchiyama's famous blog on musikui.exblog.jp

Insect sushi

(Photo courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

Spider sushi

(Photo courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

Larvae sushi

(Photo courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

(Photo courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

I am not a squeamish person but I would think twice to try those little creepy crawly cuisine, how about you?