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Is it safe to eat fire ants if they've been properly cooked?

Just curious if anyone knows anything about cooking fire ants and eating them. I’ve seen shows on the food network and the travel channel that demonstrated cultures that eat ants that are native to their region and supposedly they are quite tasty. Is there anything toxic about the fire ants that are native to central Texas? Thanks.

Public Comments

1. Ew, WTF?
2. many many cultures eat plenty of bugs and things like that. ants are actually FULL of nutrients!!
3. Why ants? Go to Subway or something and grab a sandwich.. Ants..wtf
4. You can eat them live if you want. Although, I wouldn't recommend the hot salsa with them.
5. why would you eat those anyway. thats nasty. wtf
6. Um..... i don't think you should try it!
7. all i know is that ants contain a very toxic poison...you know what poison dart frogs are right??? well they are so poisonous because they eat poisonous ants .poison dart frogs that are kept as pets are nontoxic because they are not feed ants so i would be careful but i really don't know .i do know some types of ants can be eaten tho
8. I believe it is safe to eat them so long as they are cooked first. Also, grasshoppers, rattlesnakes, turtles, and small furry rodentia are tasty too. Mosquitos are not since they carry blood-borne diseases. Dont eat fire ants if you have a severe allergy to bites from the fire ant, and be careful when collecting them because they swarm and are deadly in numbers. Bon apetit!
9. YES!!! DO NOT DO THIS! they have a toxin. this is not recommended. People have died trying to do this kind of stuff.
10. Cooking kills germs. Cooking does not eliminate any toxin. Therefore it would not be safe to just cook the ants. They still have the nasty toxins in their body. Horned lizards can eat fire ants. Their normal diet is also ants, but I would not recommend humans eat ants of any kind.
11. I know all about Fire Ants. I worked on a TV show about them exclusively. Fascinating little devils. If you "cook" them I can see no problem with eating them. With any ant, it is the Formic Acid that would be the problem, and if it's cooked I think it would lose it's potency. But, to be 100% sure, I would contact Dr. Walter Schinkle at Florida State University. He is the world expert on Fire Ants.