Eat Chocolate Covered Insects "I Dare You"

Chocolate Covered Insects

Sample some delicious chocolate covered, edible insects and candy using bugs of every description - ants, crickets, fried worms, even scorpions and other yummy, wriggling creatures. For the faint of heart, try gummy worms or make your own chocolates shaped like insects.

Eating bugs as food is an everyday occurrence in tropical counties around the world where insects thrive in the warm climate. Are you up for it?

"Eyuw, gross! You're not going to eat that are you?" Naturally, we had to try! My first shocking experience with this candy was in the cafeteria at elementary school when a friend brought some to share with the other kids. The girls squealed and the boys acted tough.

With an estimated population of over 10 quintillion (19 zeros), insects far outnumber human inhabitants of the planet. It's a good thing that they're so small. When prepared correctly, insects can be a good source of protein and a unique gift for Valentine's Day, or any day of the week.

If you're looking for unusual Halloween candy or a surprise Valentines Day treat for your sweetheart, this may be the ideal gift. For guys who can eat anything and everything you put in front them. Eating bugs will be a nice challenge, and a great finish to a romantic evening dinner date. Ants are just the beginning - try a scorpion lollipop, or barbecued crickets.

This is the delight of giving and receiving a chocolate covered ant. Enjoy the pure agony as she pops it into her mouth, "on the count of three". Savor each excruciating moment as she bites into "the juicy bits in the middle". That's the face of absolute bliss.

A little bit of oil and some spices is all that's needed to cook insects for sale on a pushcart in Bangkok, China. Usually fried long enough to get a crunchy consistency, which makes it slightly more appealing for some customers.

For Valentine's Day this year, I ordered this Giant Belgian chocolate bar, available from Zazzle, customized from a choice of 73 different toppings for over 3 million possible combinations.

Start with dark chocolate, milk chocolate or white chocolate bar as the base layer, then pick up to five different toppings. My true love's chocolate (pictured) has Hazelnuts, Cocoa Nibs, Caramel Pieces, finished off with a dusting of edible, 23 carat gold-leaf flakes.

Browse more Chocolate Custom Chocolate Bars at Zazzle

Create your own chocolates for the holidays with molds in the form of butterflies and caterpillars. Adding bugs or peanuts to the mix is purely optional.

These are detailed molds that turn 2 pounds of chocolate into nine little creatures like a worm, house fly and a salamander.

Food vendors in an outdoor marketplace in asia selling insect larvae and fried water bugs.

Many types of insects are full of enough protein and vitamins to provide sustenance for survival. Crickets are filled with calcium, caterpillars have high quantities of iron and vitamins.

Insects can easily be farmed to create an alternate source of food. It takes much less energy to farm insects for consumption than the energy required to produce the equal amount of protein from animal meat.

How to Eat Fried Worms

A classic book for early readers aged 3-5 years. Fifteen delicious recipes for preparing worms, all based on a bet between two rivals that leads to trouble for everyone, and triumph.

Combining chocolate and insects is a natural choice for kids who love candy and gummy worms and yucky, gross things in general.

Find other children's book titles with icky bugs: Chocolate Ants, Maggot Cheese, and More: The Yucky Food Book (Yucky Science series), Chocolate Covered Ants.

Webster's Pictorial Dictionary is a visual reference books loaded with the intricate little illustrations from the margins of great dictionaries. Visit Amazon to see this companion set to Pictorial Webster's — detailed drawings from the pages of vintage dictionaries are printed on beautiful wall cards to decorate kid's rooms with images from the book.