Because at SoraNews24, we always take things one step further.

Crickets are more versatile than you may think, as both a snack and in cooking in Japan. You can bake them into bread, dunk them in ramen, and now, you can eat ground-up crickets in your bowl of udon noodles. Our Japanese-language reporter K. Masami decided to take the plunge with Japanese edible insect company bugoom’s instant cricket udon made with about 100 crickets.

▼ It’s not a marketing ploy, either, as “crickets” is the second ingredient listed on the label.

Fortunately, you’re not faced with 100 whole crickets when you open up the packaging. There are some noodles, tsuyu soup broth, and dried green onions. And as for the crickets? They’re ground into a powder in the noodle package.

To assemble the udon, Masami poured some boiling water into the bowl with the udon noodles, tsuyu soup, and dried green onions.

▼ Then, she microwaved it for four minutes.

▼ When the soup turned a nice golden color, it was ready to eat.

Did it taste like anything special, though? Masami had to admit, she couldn’t tell the difference between normal udon and cricket udon.

▼ She couldn’t even see the crickets up close!

Good thing she had reinforcements. The set she purchased from bugoom actually came with a separate bag of dried, whole crickets to enjoy with the noodles. The set cost her 1,750 yen (US$15.41), but hey, where else can you get cricket soup delivered to your house?

▼ Warning: if you don’t like looking at bugs, it’s not too late to strop scrolling down!

Masami opened the cricket pouch and dumped out the contents and was surprised at the sheer number of crickets that were contained in that 15-gram (0.53-ounce) package. There must be at least 100 crickets here!

▼ That means she had to eat at least 200 crickets in total. Oh, joy.

While it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to look at, Masami thought it smelled quite like shrimp. Not unappetizing at all!

▼ It also doesn’t help that Masami is a bug lover and thinks crickets are adorable, so her heart broke a little when she dumped them into the udon bowl.

▼ “Good soup.”

The combination of the perfectly normal-looking udon noodles and the sheer number of crickets looked pretty grotesque, but it smelled so much like shrimp that Masami was able to get past her hesitation of eating it.

▼ If you’re still grossed out, just close your eyes while eating it.

It was more delicious than she thought, and soon enough she was shoveling them in. As she did her best to polish off the bowl, she did realize that maybe the entire bag of crickets was a bit overkill (no pun intended).

▼ Luckily, she was able to finish the whole thing.

Masami recommends giving this a try at least once in your life, especially since it goes so well with udon noodles. Soon enough, the whole nation may be snacking and even sipping on these niche morsels!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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