Eat bugs to fend off the apocalypse!

Do you enjoy stir fried crickets? Meal worm meatloaf? Chocolate covered ants? If so, you might just be doing the world a favor.

In my Ripley's @ OMSI post last week I briefly mentioned Ripley's Bug Cafe. The cafe was a food cart embedded with three screens which showed a play explaining why we should all eat bugs. It is a legitimate concept for conservation conscious humans to consider.

MR Fish has tried bugs before and that has made me a bit curious. Can they really be all right? Wouldn't it be nasty if a leg got stuck in your teeth or something? Aren't they a bit weird texture wise?

I think I'll hold off until they make something like an insect veggie burger. If I can't tell that it used to be a bug I might eat it lol. More likely than not we've all eaten bugs in our life times, on purpose or accidentally, but it still sounds so gross.

We do everything we can to keep bugs from getting into our food, so why should we eat bugs? Apparently there are lots of reasons!

Reasons to Eat Bugs:

• Bugs are easy to raise
• It takes less space and water to raise bugs than livestock or plants. 
• They are so easy to raise that they might become a future space food. 
• Bugs are good for you
• They are a great source of protein, calcium and other vitamins and minerals. 
• Bugs are relatively clean
• Many insects compulsively clean themselves. Yes, even cockroaches! 
• Our ancestors ate bugs
• Even the Romans ate beetle larvae and locusts.  
• Many cultures enjoy eating bugs today
• Worldwide there are far more people that eat bugs than those that don't.
• The UN urges us all to eat bugs
• Read more at LiveScience
• Bugs are tasty
• "Stinkbugs have an apple flavor, and red agave worms are spicy. A bit of tree worm apparently brings pork rinds to mind." - Jennifer Holland for Nat Geo
• Eating bugs could end world hunger
• Since bugs are so easy to raise with limited resources, cultivating more bugs could feed a ton of people. 
• The company Aspire USA has already begun raising insects in the US for just this purpose! 

Reasons to Avoid Eating Bugs:

• They look gross.
• They crawl around on the floor. 
• Some eat yucky stuff. 
• They can potentially carry disease.

Most of these negatives can be avoided if you cook bugs before eating them and purchase bugs from reputable sources. Keep in mind that many other food sources can carry diseases and bacteria as well.

So I want to Eat Bugs, Where Should I Start?

If you are adventurous enough to start eating insects straight up, Girl Meets Bug has an excellent list of sources for clean, edible bugs here. Daniella Martin, author of GMB also has recipes on her blog and even wrote a book entitled, Edible: An Adventure into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet. I'm not sure if I'm ready to start eating bugs yet, but I really want to read this book!

If you're interested in eating foods that contain insects, but don't look like insects you can check out Six Foods. They sell chips called "chirps" which contain cricket flour, but look like any other tasty whole grain chip. If you know of any other hidden insect foods, please let me know!

☮ & ♡ KM

P.S. - The link to the Edible book is an Amazon affiliates link, thank you for the support! 

Cacti

I went to H&M the other day and all I bought was a lint roller. But after I left, this cactus shirt stuck in my mind. I wish they made this print in a dress. I have too many projects right now to buy an XL and try to sew a dress out of this nifty fabric. 

Cactus Shift

 I tried to find something comparable in a dress. This was the closest I could find and it's from the UK. I need to find more dresses that are like a long t-shirt. I like the concept. 

Lick a Cactus

And just to add a bit of humor there is this shirt. I like shirts with all over prints. Somehow it seems more modern and fashionable than a regular screen print. 

Ripley's Believe It or Not - OMSI - PDX Fun!

Four legged chicken? Check. Shrunken Heads? Check. Works of art too small for the human eye to see? Got those too!

OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) is one of our favorite family friendly places to go in Portland. The exhibits are always highly interactive and fun, and the Ripley's Believe It Or Not exhibit was totally memorable. This exhibit contained more art than most which I really enjoyed.

What a nice portrait of young Justin Beiber!

What? It's made entirely out of candy? Sweeeet.

Here is a gallery of our favorite exhibits. The captions should appear once you hover over each image. It might take awhile to load, but I love the Pinterest style layout. Comments can be seen if you click on the image to full the slideshow in full screen mode. I put it together with Cincopa :). 

...

Hope that you are all having a great week! Mine is off to a great start. ***Knock on wood.***

☮ & ♡ KM

EBM: Electronic Body Music

I've been trying to work out more since I found out my cardio seriously sucks on a hike in Feburary. I've been doing some HIIT on a stationary bike since then. It took me a while to find the right kind of music to make the exertion tolerable. I tried my old trick of listening to Pimsleur language tapes, but it really only works with less intense exercise. I tried watching some anime, but I couldn't read the subtitles while my eyes were bouncing around. I tried some rock and some new-fangled dance music, but those just made me slow and irritated. Then I found the perfect mix of dance beats, cheesiness, and driving anger: EBM.

Don't get this confused with EDM, kids. It's a goth version of dance music that began in the 80's. It has a few sub-genres like future-pop, which I think are quite enjoyable. I drives me forward in my workouts with the fear of being chased by drugged-out, dystopian, cyborgs. I love it.

Got an entire bunch of overripe bananas? Make Kona Inn's Banana Bread!

I bought bananas a few days ago, totally forgot about them and they got mushy really fast. All 6 of them! Most banana recipes don't need an entire bunch of bananas but Kona Inn's Banana Bread does. It is so good, and so moist.

I wish I had more pictures to share with you, but this is all that I managed to take before I left for work. My sons destroyed this. When I returned home there was only a tiny piece left. I totally ate it right away, and I got some glares for eating the last piece lol!

Full recipe found on Food Network's web site here.

Notes:

• This recipe contains much more wet ingredients than dry ingredients. 
• If the liquid mixture looks like a ton of banana sludge don't worry - you are doing it right. 

Ingredients:

• flour, salt, baking soda, vegetable shortening, sugar, bananas, eggs, walnuts
• only 8 easy to finds items - yay! 

Substitutions made:

• I used non-hydrogenated margarine instead of vegetable shortening. 
• Whatever you use make sure it's room temperature. 
• I cooked this recipe in a glass 9x13 pan instead of using 2 loaf pans. 
• It was done in 50 minutes @ 350 degrees.

Additions:

• I added some cinnamon and vanilla. 
• I bet nutmeg and ginger would work well too. 

Mess Level:

• This whole recipe only required 2 bowls, 1 or 2 cooking vessels, measuring cups and a measuring spoon. Not bad! 
• I crumbled the walnuts directly into the bowl because I didn't feel like chopping them :P. 

Hungry yet? I know I am actually looking forward to the next time I have a bunch of overripe bananas. It's definitely a keeper. 

☮ & ♡ KM

Stuff I've Bought that Never Came

I hate buying clothes online. Not only do I have to worry about sizing discrepancies and color misrepresentation, but I also have to worry about stuff not showing up. I have major indecisiveness, so when I finally decide to order something it is a big deal. 

The bathing suit above is the latest offender. I finally decided to order it after months of deliberation. I place the order before I go on a trip and by the time I get back home my order is cancelled. I went back into my email and found the stupid notice that I had missed. It said that they were out of green and did I want the blue. Hell no, I did not want the blue. I did not spend months picking out a bathing suit to have the color changed. And now I am back in the depths of indecisiveness, so no new bathing suit for me.

I found a pretty good deal on an American Apparel shirt. I can never justify spending the full amount for their plain t-shirts. But any deal is too good to be true, I guess. This time the seller also tried to get me for a replacement. I don't get it. If the item is not in stock, then update your page. They even said since I was a girl I should want the smaller size anyway. It makes me so angry!

This was the dress that I finally decided to wear to that wedding forever ago. The post office messed up this one, not the seller, but it seriously sucked. I had looked at literally thousands of dresses and this one was one of the only ones I thought would work. I gave it two months to come from China. I kept hoping the post office would shape up. It never did and that left me scrambling for a dress last minute...I should've known because dressing for events never goes very well for me. The sad part is, I still want to wear this dress some days. I go into my closet and look around for a girly floral dress and there isn't one. 

Only Feeling - New Song on Soundcloud + Typology rant

Here's the latest edition to my song diary.
 

Only Feeling - me

I've got an ocean full of tidal waves

I need a float so I can drift away

Image is 

Everything 

Show me now

What you bring

Elbows in

Let's begin

Give me a window

Give me a hand

Give me a threshold 

Give me a plan

Is this the end all

I always run till I fall

Now my feet are slowing

Give me a window

Give me a hand

Give me a threshold 

Give me a plan

This can't be it at all (recorded as This can't be the end all - changing it)

I think I'll manage a crawl

And just keep on going

I've traveled down a hundred rugged roads

Don't need a dollar just to fill my soul

Music is 

Everything

Show me now 

what you bring

Elbows in 

Let's begin

Ladadadadadie

ladadada

Ladadadadadie

ladadada

You're always thinking

Always thinking

I'm only feeling x2

Despite the shadows and the teary eyes

You're always seeing sunny skies

The heart knows

Everything

Show me now

What you bring

Elbows in

Let's begin

Give me a window

Give me a hand

Give me a threshold 

Give me a plan

Is this the end all

I always run till I fall

Now my feet are slowing

Give me a window

Give me a hand

Give me a threshold 

Give me a plan

This can't be it at all

I think I'll manage a crawl

And just keep on going

On Typology

This song is titled "Only Feeling" as a side reference to Jung Typology tests. I am a NF (Intuitive Feeling) person or Idealist. I enjoy logic, math and technology, but my intuition and feelings rule when it comes to life decisions and relationships.  I am a total dreamer and that is the trademark of Idealists. Sometime's it's hard for me to understand "T's" or Thinkers.

Right now I am considered an ENFP but the E (Extrovert) and the P (Perceiving) aren't as strong as the NF. I have tested as INFP and ENFJ in the past, while going through different phases. The NF always stays the same. At the moment I test as ENFP across the board and it seems to be the type that I identify the most with.

After Jung created typology Myers & Briggs contributed to it's further development. Then Keirsey came along and came up with nicknames for each type. Keirsey labeled ENFPs as Champions. According to this Wikipedia article, "Champions have a strong desire to make their thoughts known to the world." This is ridiculously accurate in my case. I have been performing all of my life in one way or another and I am always looking out for kindred spirits. 

Do you know your personality type? Has it ever changed? If you haven't been tested yet this free one from Humanetrics is a good start. People can totally fit into different categories, similar to astrology, but I find that it's solid information to help me along my path towards self understanding.

"Elbows in, Let's begin" is residual training from years of ballet and jazz classes. I totally miss them! I'm thinking of joining some sort of hiphop class for exercise, but I'm gonna have to settle for video tutorials for now. One day I'll be dance video ready...

☮ & ♡ KM

Green Jello

I had so much fun making my own green gelatin. Taking backlit pictures of this ectoplasmic space goo was such a blast!

Juice of 1 lime (2 tablespoons)
Zest of 2 limes(1 teaspoon packed)
1 tablespoon Gelatin powder(+2 teaspoons if you want squares instead of goo) 
1/4 heaping cup Sugar (more if you like it sweet)
Water
3 drops Green Food Coloring (optional)

Add lime juice and gelatin to 1/2 cup cold water.

Boil 1 1/2 cups of water and add lime zest. 

Boil for a bit until you can smell the lime. 

Dissolve the sugar in the boiling lime-water.

Add the boiling water to the cold, gelatin water.

Add food coloring and stir.

This awesome, yellowish, pond-scum look is what you're going to get if you forgo the food coloring. 

Put in fridge for about 8 hours. The freezer will speed it up a bit, but don't -whatever you do- don't let it freeze.

The lime zest will probably settle in the bottom and you will be able to see it, so the jello won't be perfectly clear like the commercial stuff. It looks spookier, but you should probably strain it out with cheese cloth after it boils with the sugar for a bit because it leaves a weird texture. If you forgot, you can always just cut off the bottom where most of it settles, which is what I ended up doing.

Green Jellÿ, pronounced green jello, named their band after what they thought was the worst flavor of Jello. Whatever. I've always loved green jello, even when I was a little kid at the hospital. They also self-report themselves as the world's worst band. I think I would have to disagree with them on that, too. They are like a cheesier Gwar, which I happen to find quite amusing. Check 'em out. It's great fun to listen to while playing with your gelatinous space-goo.

The Majestic Major Lazer - 7 Favorite Songs

I've been on a Major Lazer binge lately, just can't get enough. The beats are always on point and the lyrics are solid. Major Lazer's sounds span a variety of genres, most commonly they feature a fusion of reggae and EDM. Perfect dance party music.

Major Lazer's videos are pretty awesome too. Some parts can be a bit risque; twerking seems to be a requirement for Major Lazer video. I find that it is still milder than most and love how they tell a story in addition to showcasing awesome dance moves.



I could listen to this song over and over again. One of my favorite things about Major Lazer is that their songs are so different from each other because they often feature different artists. I have never heard of the Dirty Projectors before but I had to look them up after hearing Amber on this track. Love her voice!



Warning: this video will probably give you wanderlust. I totally want to go to India now, the architecture is gorgeous and I love the bright colors. You can even learn how to dance to this song directly from the choreographer in this dance tutorial featured on Major Lazer's Youtube channel.



This video might be my favorite because I can totally relate to it's dorkiness. My brother and I have seriously had sword battles like this before except for not so choreographed and a bit more attack like lol. The house reminds me of my grandma and grandpa's home. The song rocks too, total battle music.



This is yet another case for wanderlust. Can't travel back to the 90's but I bet Jamaica is still just as dope. Everyone's just so good at dancing in this video, even the little ones! Seriously good material for my dance goals. Love the outfits too, I'm all about the neon.



Ukulele meets EDM in Sound Bang. It totally reminds me of living in Hawaii. Good vibes.

 

There isn't an official video for this song but it is so dope. There are lots of ridiculously awesome dance videos out there for this song. I really like this one by Ke'Aira Roberson.

Being a huge fan of Santigold, I really wish there was an official video for this song. This was one of the first Major Lazer songs that I remember listening too and it is still as good as ever.


☮ & ♡ KM