Personal highlight from yesterday’s presentation before the standing committee on Canadian Heritage: assurances from CBC president Robert Rabinovitch that CBC won’t do “shows that stress plastic surgery, sex and humiliation [and the] eating of insects.” (All at once? Imagine the ratings!)

The comment was a response to a grilling over reality television by NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus. He brought up the dreaded issue of The One, as well as statements Rabinovitch made to the committee a year ago stating that CBC would steer clear of reality television. Rabinovitch said those statements were ambiguous – we do reality TV, just nothing yucky.

I have nothing to add… so here’s some background information on what we’ll be missing out on.

• - Bug eating is formally known as “entomophagy“
• - There are 1,462 recorded species of edible insects
• - They all look gross on a plate
• - To make corn borer cornbread muffins, just add corn borers to cornbread
• - Live termites are 350 calories per 100 Grams, 23 per cent protein
• - In China, beekeepers are considered virile, because they regularly eat larvae from their beehives.

And finally, the four cardinal rules for eating bugs:

• - Always try to cook insects
• - Never eat bugs you find dead
• - Don’t eat bugs that bite back
• - If it smells really bad, don’t eat it

Hakuna matata!

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