ROCKET NEWS

 

Big savings on scorpions not enough? Okay, they’ll throw in larva and crickets too!

Every New Year’s season, most shops around Japan offer lucky bags (fukubukuro) which are large packs of various items usually sold at a nice discount. They tend to go on sale early January, but national novelty store chain Village Vanguard has got one so hot that they are accepting pre-orders from now until 15 December.

 

It’s called the Takeo Insect Food Lucky Bag, and as its no-frills name suggests, it is an assortment of foods made from insects – the term “made from” is used loosely here as for the most part these are just whole insects.

The first item in the Takeo Insect Food Lucky Bag is one 15-gram (half-ounce) pack of Mixed Pupae. This hearty snack food is comprised of mealworms, superworms, silkworms, and sago palm weevil larva.

 

While these are technically larvae rather than pupae, they certainly are mixed, and they also come lightly salted for your snacking pleasure.

I’ve never had mealworms personally, but my pet water dragon loved them. Now you can too!

The second item is Cricket Pasta. Easily the most edible of the bunch, this looks like an ordinary bag of corkscrew pasta (three servings). However, 20 percent of the flour that went into making it was actually ground up crickets.

This allows more squeamish diners to enjoy the protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B12, and omega fatty acids of crickets, without having to actually see their dead bodies on your plate – an absurdly rare idea in the insect food realm.

 

Finally, for those who lack a squeamish bone in their body, there is a can of scorpions. Each can contains two dried four to five centimeter armor tail scorpions. These insects have a long history in China as both a food and form of medicine for neurological problems.

These particular scorpions have been “heat treated” to render their venom safe for consumption. This means the only thing you have to worry about is their terrifying appearance.

 

Ordinarily, these three items would run you 4,500 yen (US$40), but in this Takeo Insect Food Lucky Bag they can all be yours for only 3,500 yen ($31)! Of course, Village Vanguard and Takeo would have to be insane to sell everyone scorpions at such a discount, so unfortunately these bags are limited to only 30 available for purchase.

It’s perfect for the holiday season when certain relatives who just don’t know when to leave come for a visit. Watch as your drunk uncle suddenly has business to attend to after a handful of superworms tumbles into his hand from your Darth Vader snack dispenser (sold separately).