• Question: Can you eat a spider?

    Asked by anon-208899 to Tori, Titus, Stuart, Hannah, Gill, Alessandro on 8 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Stuart Higgins

      Stuart Higgins answered on 8 Mar 2019:

      As long as it’s not poisonous, it’s probably ok to eat spiders, but I wouldn’t recommend that you start eating random spiders. There are plenty of cultures around the world that eat insects (some people think we should eat more because they say insects because it would be better for the environment). I googled about spiders (spiders aren’t insects, they’re arthropods), and apparently fried tarantula is a delicacy in Cambodia.

    • Photo: Gill Harrison

      Gill Harrison answered on 10 Mar 2019:

      As Stuart said, you’ve to be careful about what you, but there are some spiders that you can eat. I have eaten deep fried tarantula in Cambodia.

    • Photo: Hannah Dalgleish

      Hannah Dalgleish answered on 11 Mar 2019:

      It’s possible but I’m not sure I would actually want to… Gill what did the tarantula taste like!?

    • Photo: Tori Blakeman

      Tori Blakeman answered on 12 Mar 2019: last edited 12 Mar 2019 12:38 pm

      Well, anyone CAN eat a spider, I just wouldn’t recommend it!! Lots of poisonous ones out there so don’t risk it. However, I’m sure there are many safe ones.

      In the future, we might eat insects (as Stuart said, spiders aren’t insects though!) as they offer a sustainable protein source – meaning that they have good nutrients for you but use less land/water than other foods to produce. STFC is currently working with a company called Entocycle to help them make an autonomous (meaning it does it on its own without human help) insect growing system!! See here: https://www.entocycle.com/

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