I have mentioned before how I am no stranger to eating bugs. I have never tried ants before though, and a rainy sunday afternoon seemed a perfect time to change this, seeing as I was gifted a selection of insect candy following my garlic bread and pasty sticks of rock encounter.

Looks a delight doesn’t it. It was extremely sticky opening it from the packet. As soon as it touched the taste buds, I was hit with an extremely sweet flavour, slightly blueberry but mostly just that wonderful over the top sugary-ness that American candy has.

It didn’t take long before I got my first experience of an ant. I read somewhere that they are baked before being put in their sugary prison and an ant butt was soon sticking out of the lolly. It was very sharp on the tounge. I dont mean taste, I mean literally sharp like a small stone or something. It broke off after a while and I swallowed it.

It was a bitch to photograph, I don’t know if it was because it was translucent and my camera had trouble focusing.

It seemed to take forever to for the lollipop to shrink some. Maybe because I just wasn’t really wanting to rush to get to the bugs. But then it did get to them and I don’t know if it was just because there was more of a cluster of them but they have a very distinct taste. Mildly bitter, perhaps a little like coffee, but with a dark chocolate after taste. It wasn’t that bad at all. The ants ending up loose in the mouth and texture of them being crispy and then chewy was the worst part. The extremely sweet taste of the lollipop probably helped with the general flavour of the ants. I don’t think I could have eaten them on their own.

So yeah, overall the experience wasn’t that bad. Would I eat similar things in the future? Hell yeah, I have  a packet of salt and vinegar crickets, and a scorpion and a crickets lollipop to go yet! Do I feel like Bear Grylls? Well as I didn’t end up washing it down with my own pee, no probably not. But I am glad to have crossed another weird thing off the list of stuff to try. They say variety is the spice of life, and I am not going to disagree that statement, especially where odd new food is concerned. Even if that food does have eyes and six legs.