All things considered, I am willing to indulge my Grade A USDA-approved diet and retreat from ethnocentric culinary superiority, but I refuse to be sheepish about my aversion to certain foods. Call it habit. Call me a reluctant explorer. I will even admit to continuing to be judgmental about dietary practices. And, to be frank, I believe there's a measure of ethnocentric arrogance within the recipe for some cultural specialties.

Bird's nest soup, a sheep's head with eyeballs intact or blowfish so poisonous a chef must have a license to prepare it -- what is this but gastronomical hubris? Who decided the bird saliva binding twigs together in a swallow's nest is nourishing and tasty? Who ate the first sheep's eye? Why is blowfish popular in the Far East although hundreds of people die after consuming improperly prepared servings?

On the other hand, tripe, scrapple and pig's feet remind us of our wastefulness. I realize people began to eat intestines, brains and trotters from necessity. And while many people continue to eat assorted organs and extremities today, I sense no haughtiness when someone announces he cherishes chitlins.

Ants, tripe or a sheep's head -- I suppose given a choice of the three I would take the ants. I prefer simplicity. Age burns away passion and certainty. Age also consumes appetites. To me, food is fuel. Simple cereal is sufficient in the morning, beans and salsa midday and perhaps an egg, bread and cheese at night. Food is neither my religion nor my vice, and I have come to the point of my life where I have no quarrel with the gourmet, look with some puzzlement on the gourmand and pity the glutton.

I looked at the cereal box, and I smiled in admiration of the industrious Camponotus consobrinus. The sugar ant tribe had managed to discover the single open box of sweetened cereal in our house. I watched as they hustled through a small gap in the top flap. I will eat no more of them, I suppose. Three bites are sufficient. Now I'm left to think about what is and what isn't food, and about why I must claim accident rather than intention if I tell someone I ate ants for breakfast.

I will take the box outside later, scattering the tainted cereal beneath the great pin oak in our yard. The squirrels will not notice the ants, rejoicing only in the bounty among the leaves. Some of the less squeamish among us see the ants in the same light. Some go further, insisting nourishing protein is available in abundance not only from ants and spiders, but also from grasshoppers, termites, beetles, crickets and nearly every other thing that creeps and crawls. Cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens demand land, energy and human stewardship. Insects breed like flies, take up minimal space and provide excellent food value.

I looked again at the ant-infested cereal box, ideas crawling along the edge of my subconscious. A breakfast of ants has carried my concept of food into unknown territory. I thought that I cared most that I eat nourishing food in minimal amounts, believing control of this appetite, like any other, reflects moral stability. But now I see that may not be enough. It seems every hamburger declares my contempt for the environment, illustrates my lack of regard for ethical choices and proclaims an unsupportable belief in an illusory cultural superiority.

I tried to explain all this to my wife. "Sounds like a heavy burden for a little ant," was all she had to say.

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