So I came across these Larvets dried worm snacks at the Liberty State Science Center gift shop. Since I’m always on the lookout for portable, convenient foods high in protein to keep in my gym bag for a post-workout replenishment, I decided to read the Nutrition Facts label. It turns out that each 5.6g box of Larvets only contains a measly 0.5g of protein! (Or 1 oz of dried worms contains 2.5g of protein.) Just by way of comparison: 1 oz of string cheese has 8g of protein, and a hard boiled egg, which is about an ounce, has 6.25g of protein. Now, there appeared to be about 10 worms per box, which means you’d have to eat about 160 worms just to get the same amount of protein in a piece of string cheese! (Lucky they come in 3 savory flavors: Cheddar Cheese, BBQ and Mexican Spice…)

I suppose what we can derive from this is that you should eat worms because you like the taste or because we’ve run out of all other food on the planet, but not because they’re a good source of protein.

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