What I Learned from Finding a Bug in my Breakfast

Jul 7, 2016
3 min read

I have recently embarked on making amazing breakfasts each morning. You must understand, I am not a morning person (just ask my husband!) and most days “breakfast” was a granola bar or whatever junk food my co-workers brought to the lounge that I quickly scarfed down on my 10:00 break.

A recent exploration of the Whole30 forced me to rethink my approach to breakfast. No more easy grab and go. This required planning. Time. In the morning. When I am a bear. Uphf.

Enter breakfast transformation. Since April 11th my typical breakfast went from this:

To this:

Give or take.

So this morning as I woke and did my morning ritual (also a new endeavor), I dutifully, if slightly crankily, prepared my breakfast: two eggs over medium, three mini bell peppers, a small spoon of roasted garlic, two balsamic onions, and an iced chai tea. (I’m not 100% Whole30 anymore, but I lean that way. I’m sure there will be a post over what I learned doing the Whole30 at some point.) Proud of myself for creating a colorful and nutritious breakfast, I tucked in.

And then I found this.

Ok, this was taken on my phone so it’s not the greatest quality. For those of you who can’t tell, it’s a tiny beetle-thing loitering in my beautiful bell pepper. Dead. Pushing up [daisies] peppers. Cold. Departed. Expired.

Several years ago this would have freaked me out, especially in the morning when I am easily spooked and far from fully functional. This morning I [smiled] turned the corners of my mouth ever so slightly up and realized:

Finding a dead bug in my breakfast really doesn’t bother me.

Am I weird?

But I got to thinking about what it actually means to find a dead bug in my (organic) bell pepper.

It brought me closer to my food. As a society, we are more and more removed from where our food comes from. When I talk to students and they can’t tell me where the grocery stores get the food they purchase (or it comes “from a box”), I worry. Finding a bug in my breakfast makes me remember that what I’m eating was grown in the ground. With dirt. And worms. And ladybugs. And little beetles. Who apparently can die and become a part of the final pepper which lands on my breakfast plate.
It reminds me to be mindful. Have you ever taken a mindful meal? Eaten an entire meal and really looked at your food? Smelled, felt, touched each bite, savored each morsel? Thought about where it comes from and expressed gratitude for every being that helped it get to your belly? Mindful meals can make a 10 minute breakfast turn into a 45 minute endeavor, but I would whole-heartedly recommend the experience. Besides, you just might avoid eating a less-than-welcome addition.
It makes me appreciate the garden growing in my backyard. The sweat, the sun, the earth, and the insects. I have cultivated a garden off and on since I was small (thanks Dad for your help getting me started!). This spring my husband and I installed a 4’x8’ raised bed in our miniscule backyard and are growing a variety of mostly vegetables. Some are doing better than others. Although there are no peppers out there this summer, I have tried growing them in the past with medium success. It makes me incredibly grateful for what food we grow and what food we decide to purchase. (We have spinach and green beans coming out our ears, some of which is shared with various slugs and bugs. Like my breakfast this morning.) Check out Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Reading this book started the shift in my own perception to know the route my food took to arrive on my plate.
I’d be willing to eat bugs on my travels. While not top on my list of food culture, if I had the chance to try deep fried grasshoppers or snack on ants or eat a delicately seasoned centipede, I would go for it. Why not? Bugs are protein too.

I don’t plan on becoming a bug connoisseur anytime soon (though wouldn’t that be an unusual topic of learning to pursue - stay tuned!), I’d rather share my breakfast with a beetle and know it’s a sign of its connection to the earth than to live my life eating food that comes from boxes.