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Gaaark (41)
Gaaark
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Linux user. Tries to keep feeding the brain with stuff. Husband and father of a young lady and a younger son who has autism/is autistic... that nut didn't fall far from this nut-tree, I'll tell ya: he gets it honestly. Now if only he'd sleep..............
I believe that God gave us the science, curiousity and intelligence to one day conclusively prove that God does not exist.
(email not shown publicly)
Linux user. Tries to keep feeding the brain with stuff. Husband and father of a young lady and a younger son who has autism/is autistic... that nut didn't fall far from this nut-tree, I'll tell ya: he gets it honestly. Now if only he'd sleep..............
I believe that God gave us the science, curiousity and intelligence to one day conclusively prove that God does not exist.
The Fine Print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Monday February 06, 17
01:05 AM
I finally have a farm large enough that i felt i could do a sampling:
mealworms DO taste like popcorn, with maybe a bit of peanut.
I took 6 out, fairly large, froze them for a bit, and put them on an oiled pan (with some tofu i'm trying) and cooked them for 15 mins at 375F : the worms were, actually, better tasting than the tofu (which i marinaded in a soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, etc mix).
Crunchy, ate 3, then 3 more without thinking too much about it. Stayed down, lol.
Next, i might bake them with some soy sauce or something... still not at a good, self-sustaining size, though. :(
The plan continues: maybe someday i'll be a tofu eating, bug digesting animal: kind of a meat eating vegetarian, lol.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when
it has been used to commit a murder.
-- M. Gallaher
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @02:15AM
How big is fairly large and what is the texture like (besides the crunchy outside)?
Sounds much better than the silkworms I've had.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 06 2017, @05:21PM
These are the regular mealworms, not the "giant" ones, and are big enough to be ready to become larvae, so almost 1ish inches in length.
It seems that they are mostly water inside, because they were mostly dry, crispy husk when i ate them (375 for 15 mins... might have over cooked them). Not much to them.
Basically kind of like eating the brown bit of the kernel left attached to the popcorn, but not enough substance to get stuck between the teeth (?) (but not quite like that......?? hrmmmm.... like eating a cheezy? kind of there and gone?
Gonna have to not cook them so much next time.
It seems that once you get over the 'ick' factor, it's not going to be a big problem: the problem will be keeping a big enough farm. I think i'm looking at a good year of farming in order to get a hardy supply for eatin' (at least in order to make it more than just a small snack).
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Monday February 06 2017, @09:50PM
Are you making your own soil medium? How big is it?
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 08 2017, @06:05AM
I'd love to hear the whole story. How did you build it, performance, goals, whatever?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Thursday February 09 2017, @02:20AM
I started with buying a couple small containers of worms from the pet store for my turtle, then got tired of buying them and decided to farm my own (buying from the pet store isn't really expensive, but long term it would be).
I used to separate the worms and beetles, but now i'm just not going to worry about it (some sources say the beetles will eat the larvae, some say don't worry... i went with the "don't worry" crowd, lol).
I keep them in a plastic container with a lid and prop the lid up a bit for air circulation. I have 2 containers, in case one of them gets mold on the oatmeal and i have to dump the lot and take the loss of only one cultivation. I might move to 3 or 4 containers to mitigate that further.
I use oatmeal for their food, as well as various veggies for water. I put the veggies inside a small lid like a pickle lid and put it inside a larger lid like a margarine lid: i found that the worms and beetles seem to constantly drag the oatmeal into the veggies container when i used just the one, which can contribute to oatmeal mold, so the oatmeal they drag in basically gets left in the margarine lid and doesn't make it into the pickle lid.
For the veggies, i use stuff that is high in water (but won't turn to mush) like carrots and celery cut up in slices. They just eat it up like crazy.
And thats basically it:
Container they can't get out of
Oatmeal as living/digging down into material
two lids, smaller one inside bigger one and put right onto the oatmeal (they climb no problem, even the baby worms)
veggies put into the smaller lid
Change the veggies every couple/three days
It's cool: put your ear up to the beetle container and it sounds like rice crispies in milk :)
And the oatmeal is constantly in motion. Kinda creepy, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2017, @07:03PM
Live mealworms to the millennials. Grow something fun [shroomery.org].
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @08:54PM
get on it gurk
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 09 2017, @04:44PM
I know - the little critters are probably good for you. You say they taste good. You'll probably outlive my by decades. But, I just can't get past the idea of eating worms. I've eaten snake, alligator, crawdads, octopus, squid, frogs, buffalo, groundhog, almost everything there is to eat. But, I just can't wrap my brain around eating worms. Someone would have to sneak them into a meal without telling me, before I ever ate a worm. Or, the worm would have to sneak into my meal, like in an apple. ;^)
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday February 09 2017, @04:57PM
It's funny: i'll eat another worm WAAAYY before i'll eat coconut. Just can't get by the taste and texture for some reason.
Yeah, i've eaten a lot of those things, would love to try snake and groundhog, would like to try squid, but won't pay the price to try it. Would love to try squirrel.
Had cows tongue as a kid once and thought it was FANTASTIC. Then began thinking of the cow chewing in that drooly slop way they do and had to stop eating it. Now that i'm older, i should try it again.
I dunno: i just looked at the worms, thought 'down the hatch' and started chewing. They disappeared fairly fast, like i said... like a cheezy, just kind of 'gone'.
Mind over stomach! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by rondon on Friday February 10 2017, @06:39PM
Cow tongue, where I am at least, is expensive. And I think it is difficult to cook. So I generally only eat it in tacos made by particular Mexican restaurants that are very good at cooking it properly. My two cents
(Score: 2) by driven on Friday February 10 2017, @06:23AM
Your post reminded me of the "automated cooked chicken farm" [youtube.com] in Minecraft that people make. You put eggs in one side and cooked chicken comes out the other side.
Wonder if you could create something like that in real life for your mealworms: load it up initially with mealworms, then just keep feeding them and have some kind of sorting device to extract the adults and cook them for you. Maybe grind them up even after they are cooked and out the other side comes cooked or ground worms.
I don't know... just a silly idea I had. :)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday February 10 2017, @10:28PM
There are kits you can buy, but last i saw, they were $600 and up (unless you go with the DIY, but too much work for what i have right now... maybe in the future).
I'm the farmer who likes to stand by his 'fields' with a toothpick or piece of straw in his mouth and go "Ayuh! Thas my crop there. Monsanto free, may i add."
I'm not the guy who works 24/7 at it, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday February 11 2017, @12:01AM
After all, there is "meal" in mealworm.
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