Talk about strange addictions. A 26-year-old is opening up about his addiction to eating bugs. He eats more than a 100 a day describing them to tasting like French cheeses.
The Chicago native recently appeared on My Strange Addiction via New York Post.
"Mealworms [are] a contender for, like, one of my most favorite insects," Carlos explained. "And my favorite thing about them is the flavor. It's a lot like buttered popcorn.
He also eats roaches as well and crickets too. He described roaches as tasting like custard.
"When it, like, squiggles around your mouth, very rewarding. You don't get that from any other kind of food, I guarantee you," Carlos said.
His partner, Ashley, weighed in on her boyfriend's strange addiction to bugs.
"When I first found out about Carlos's bugging, I thought it was, I guess, cute," partner Ashley said. "But as time has gone on, it's become evident that it's a major crutch for him."
Carlos said he has been eating bugs since he was a child.
Addicted To Eating Bugs
"At a very young age, I always had a curiosity about eating them," he explained. "My earliest memory as a child was when I was like 4 years old, and I was eating bugs at that age."
Now he's eating around 30,000 insects a year.
"When I eat and chew live bugs, it makes me feel like I am the master of their destiny," he said. "I'm pretty animalistic and primal about it."
Nurse practitioner Nanette Cambronero, however, is concerned about his health.
"The problem is when you eat these bugs live, you are contaminating your body with active live parasitic and bacterial infections," she said. "There are studies that show that parasitic infections can even travel to the brain and basically eat at your brain tissue and contribute to chronic diseases that resemble early dementia."
He admitted that he wasn't aware bugs could be harmful to his health.
"I had no idea the full extent of damage that it could potentially cause. I do want to change, but I also really like eating bugs," he admitted. "I've cut back significantly since filming. It was a contained period of my life, and while traces of it remain, it's no longer something I engage with intentionally."
