ROACHES!

Yesterday, I was reading an article online about the benefits of eating ants and other insects.  The piece talked about how insects are a good source of protein and how the cultivation of insects as a source of protein is more environmentally sustainable than our current reliance on cattle and pigs. Recent studies have also shown that eating insects has at least two major health advantages.  First, Insects supposedly contain antioxidants that help people fight off the threat of cancer, and second, eating bugs makes for a healthier heart by lowering bad cholesterol while providing more good cholesterol.

The article gave me pause, and I started thinking about what eating insects would be like. 

I’ve only eaten bugs once. My sister Donna gave me a gag gift for my 13th birthday of a box of chocolate-covered ants and snails and spiders.  She didn’t think I would eat them, but I did.  In fact, I have to admit I enjoyed them. The dark chocolate was great, and the bugs were thoroughly crunchy.  

But I’m not sure I’d eat any more insects because when I think of insects now, mostly what I remember are the roaches that plagued us when I was a kid.  

As Polish refugees after World War II, we lived in some dumpy places in Chicago.  In most of them, we had some ants and spiders and worms, but mainly what we had were cockroaches.  They were everywhere.

I remember one time going into the kitchen at 2 in the morning for a drink of water.  When I turned on the light, I saw the ceiling was covered in roaches. I ran into the bathroom then to get some roach spray, and the bathroom was full of roaches too. They were on the ceiling and the walls and the floor.  There were some even crawling around the toilet bowl! I immediately started spraying and sprayed for an hour, and then I spent another hour sweeping the roaches up and cleaning the walls and ceiling.

The next day, they were back.

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This column originally appeared in the Dziennik Zwiazkowy, the oldest Polish newspaper in America