Cockroaches, spiders, scorpions.
There are an estimated 10 quintillion insects on Earth.
2 billion for every human.
But there is one man taking on more than his fair share.
One meal at a time.
My name is Dave Gracer and I'm obsessed with eating bugs.
To be obsessed means I get told that I'm crazy or sick or weird.
And I mean, that's what it is, to be in an unpopular position.
There is this complete double standard that people have bugs as long as they're in the
ocean. Crabs, shrimp and lobster are just fine to eat and people like them and spend
quite a bit of money for them.
Whereas if bugs are on the land, suddenly it's all you.
It's warm. David Gracer is an average 47 year old teacher living with his wife and daughter
in Rhode Island.
But David's diet is not exactly average.
He has eaten more than 5000 bugs over the past 11 years.
When it comes.
To getting bugs, you got to kill them.
And there's a variety of ways of doing that.
I prefer freezing them because you go to sleep.
So I think it's the most humane way.
This is my treasure chest of edible bugs.
David keeps a stock of over 12,000 insects from 20 different species as he stores the
carcasses in a free standing freezer in his basement.
David's interest in eating insects just kept getting bigger.
Grasshopper. Grasshopper.
Grasshopper and bigger fly pupa.
Cicada and bigger scorpion taste.
Kind of like this weird plastic.
This will last me about two weeks.
Maybe a week.
Of the few species of cockroaches that I've had, these are tastier than the others, and
they're very crunchy.
He likes to be eccentric.
That's a good thing, though.
A little bit of cockroach left, so I had to.
Got to finish that. I've had some success with.
Taking one of these guys and putting it on a leaf of endive with a nice little scoop of
goat cheese and a drizzle of honey.
David uses bugs as an integral ingredient in at least one meal every day.
So I'm just making like 4 or 5 kinds of bugs.
Oh.
Okay. He has over two dozen bug recipes in his repertoire, including his famous water
bug fricassee with a fly poop garnish.
I've got some cicadas flies.
I've got these big crickets, some giant water bugs.
While David thrives on his bug filled diet, his wife Kim, and nine year old daughter
Sonja hardly share his enthusiasm for insects.
Which one do you want?
None. I think it's disgusting that my daddy's bugs.
These are the giant water bugs.
They've got wings.
They've got these big claw arms.
And I'm going to cut that open and eat the meat out of it.
Good.
Most people, they are just completely disgusted and shocked that I would kiss
someone and have a kid with someone that does that.
He's looking at me.
No, no. Here we go. Now he's turning away from fine.
David's interest in eating insects only began when I met him.
We had gone to an event together.
I tried to cricket. It was okay.
I was done with it.
Thanks for sharing. Yeah.
Did you actually have one? No.
If I were to tell David, no more eating insects, that might be grounds for him
leaving me.
When I was a kid.
I paid a lot of attention to bugs.
So much so that all the other kids knew that I was a weirdo.
I started going into the woods and getting my own bugs, and I think the first ones I
found was a whole log full of carpenter ants.
And I tried those and I even tried some fresh from the log.
To date, David has tasted over 70 different species of bugs, and when he wants something
more exotic, he goes to his personal supermarket, the pet store.
How's it going, Linda?
Dave is a regular customer.
Most of the customers come here to buy crickets for their reptiles.
Dave comes to buy them for himself.
Today he is picking up a specially ordered bug he has never encountered.
Afraid to ask what's in there?
Ugh, that's gross.
David got some sort of special insect.
I'm not. Not sure what it is.
It's a little scary.
The first time I had Scorpion.
That was exciting. That was the new thing.
This is like that.
They're tropical.
You can't handle them. They're just too nasty.
They're kind of expensive.
This one is going to run me 30 or 40 bucks.
With scorpions and tarantulas already under his belt, David braces himself for his most
venomous bug yet.
That that is a monster.
I will eat a monster tonight.
The family is going to go out to a really nice restaurant.
But if David's part of it, who knows what it could be?
Hey, Dave. Welcome, bud. How are you?
Good. Dave is a friend of mine who I've known for about ten years.
For a long time. Dave's been talking to me about bugs, and I've always kind of pushed
him aside and said, You know, that's not for me.
But I think I'm finally ready to sort of embrace the bug and give it a shot.
What do we have here, Dave?
These are oh my goodness.
What do. We got? Pandora monster.
It's a monster. No one's touching these until they're dead because they can put some
serious harm.
This insect is extremely aggressive and fast.
Freezing it for two hours is the only way to kill it and avoid potentially deadly bites.
So we're going to freeze them up now. Yeah.
I've never cooked a bug before.
It's our first time doing it. So we're going to do wild mushrooms.
A 4 to 5 madeira wine, fresh herbs, lemon juice and a little bit of butter.
I don't really know what they taste like.
I've read little descriptions here and there.
I read one place where it said that their flesh is blue.
This is a giant Vietnamese centipede.
That is unbelievable.
The whiskers on the front, that's the head.
And that's where the action is.
That's where the danger is.
You were saying that when the wild these guys hunt.
Small rodents.
Snakes. That's right. It's a bug that takes down mammals.
The Vietnamese centipede is the only species of centipede to have ever killed a human
being.
The oil. I'll season them again.
Just real quick, a little bit of salt and pepper.
The heat not only cooks the insect, it also breaks down the poisonous venom.
Little splash of that on the pan.
From what I've been told, there's a shellfish sort of note to them.
So we'll see if that gets picked up or not.
I didn't know people actually cook bugs like this and eat them at like a regular basis.
Kind of grossed out.
Oh, okay.
It's time. You.
There you go. Take a peek and see what we've done today for you, Dave.
Oh, my God.
It's still got the very much the look of the beast.
All right. It is a little bitter and earthy.
It's not my favorite bug.
I want to see if there's anything in the legs.
I don't know that there is.
As soon as David ripped open that centipede, I knew there was no way I'm eating that.
All right.
But there's so much muscle tissue.
I feel like I was.
About to throw up.
This is it's like an undiscovered country for me.
We came out for a quiet dinner and saw this very sharing individual here, eating some
some bugs.
No pressure if you feel like not doing it.
Sometimes David decides to incorporate other people into our evening.
On three. One, two, three.
It didn't taste good.
It didn't taste good at all.
It was barely edible.
He reminded me of a bad clam.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. It's fun for us, too.
Thanks for coming in.
Yeah, this is like a peak experience for a bug eater.
I'll always be eating bugs.
I mean, this.
Is something that will be part of my life for the rest of my life.
Well, that was delicious.